Managing Director Magnus Kullberg lives in Henån with his wife Doreen and their son Max – who is four years old. He has a five-minute downhill mountain bike ride to get to the Berthon Scandinavia office down in the harbor. We can think of worse ways to get to work…
He writes: “I went to a technical gymnasium (secondary school, grammar school or sixth form college…) with a focus on ‘Mechanical Design’. After being done with school I worked for twelve years in automatic production, mainly for Mölnlycke Healthcare R&D, designing and developing technology, products and production machines for hygiene and medical products.
I have always liked sailing and traveling and decided to take a one-year break from work in 1999 to live the dream and go cruising. We ended up spending the following three years cruising with our 32-foot yacht and working within the charter industry in Tortola, BVI. There I got totally hooked on sailing.
When coming back to Sweden I started to work for Najad. I worked in the marina, commissioning and delivering new yachts to clients from all around the world. For most of my time at Najad I then managed the 46-57 foot range of yachts – overlooking the production and development of new and existing models and working closely with the clients during the sales and building process, as well as the hand-over and after sales service. It was a great job.
When Najad eventually went bankrupt in 2011 and everything was pointing down in the yachting industry I started XLNT Yachting AB – aiming to work as an international yacht brokerage, specialized in premium Scandinavian manufactured sailing yachts, from 30-80 foot and built after 1990; yachts that are attractive in an international market.
During my first years as a yacht broker, I was also hired as a contractor during the spring/summer for Hallberg-Rassy – commissioning and preparing yachts for delivery. After long term cooperation with Berthon International we decided to merge and became Berthon Scandinavia AB in 2020.
We have a unique archipelago in Sweden which has been a playground for me and my friends while growing up. I grew up in the south of Göteborg which is close to the sea. Being on the water has always been natural for me. I started my sailing life with an optimist.
The most memorable sailing adventures I have experienced include a trip from south Norway to Skagen in the summer time, about 30 years ago, with my Allegro 27. Much more wind and much higher waves then predicted, breakage of the main, genoa, the goose neck and an engine that did not start. This taught me a lot.
Sailing my Open 50 from the USA to Sweden was amazing, especially when doing +25 knots down the long and beautiful Atlantic waves. A few trips cross the Atlantic with a Najad 570 has shown me what comfortable cruising really means.”
