In January 2016, Safe Harbor Marinas launched with 31 marinas across 12 states, a Dallas headquarters, and a stated plan to deploy more than $500 million in acquisitions and build the first true national marina operator.
That was the starting line. The system underneath had to be ready to run a race nobody had ever run before in this industry.
Inscio was brought in at the very beginning. We helped Safe Harbor evaluate ERP options, license NetSuite, implement it, and we have supported the platform every year since.
A roll-up running at full speed.
The cadence picked up almost immediately.
In early 2017, the Brewer Yacht Yard Group deal added 25 marinas across 17 states and more than doubled the company in a single transaction. By 2018 the portfolio was past 70 marinas, with Koch Real Estate Investments taking a minority stake. Weatherford Capital added $40 million in 2019. Newport Shipyard came on as the 85th property. By the next ownership transaction, Safe Harbor was at 101 owned and 5 managed marinas, roughly 40,000 members, 22 states, 30,000 wet slips, and 8,300 dry racks.
Every one of those acquisitions had to land somewhere clean.
Our job was to make sure that place was NetSuite. Not a side instance, not a parallel ledger, not a “we will integrate it later” promise. One foundation, absorbing each tuck-in.
Two ownership transitions. One platform.
In September 2020, Sun Communities announced a $2.11 billion all-cash acquisition. The deal closed at the end of October. Safe Harbor became the marina platform of a publicly traded REIT.
The pace did not slow down. The platform crossed 114 marinas through 2021. Then in February 2025, Sun announced the sale of Safe Harbor to Blackstone Infrastructure for $5.65 billion in cash, roughly 21 times 2024 FFO, with a $1.3 billion book gain to Sun. Initial close at the end of April. 138 marinas. 123 transferred in the first tranche. Late 2025 added Port Annapolis, Chula Vista, Marina Bay Yacht Harbor, and other West Coast properties.
Through all of it, the NetSuite foundation held. Two sponsors. Nearly five years inside a NYSE-listed REIT with public-company reporting requirements. A strategic sale closing at $5.65 billion. The financial and operational platform never had to be torn down and rebuilt.
What it actually took to keep that platform running.
A marina operates on its own systems. Reservations, slip assignments, fuel sales, service work orders, point of sale, member access. Across 138 properties, that means a stack of marina management systems all generating their own transactions, every day, all year.
NetSuite had to be the place where all of it landed, accurately, in time to close.
Inscio built custom integrations between Safe Harbor’s marina management systems and NetSuite. Not one integration. A library of them, sized to the reality of a roll-up that kept absorbing properties on different platforms.
Then we built an integration workbench and console inside NetSuite. One place for the finance team to see what was flowing in, what was failing, what needed attention, and what needed to be reprocessed. Exception handling that scales when transaction volume is measured in millions per month.
We also leveraged our Intercompany Balancing (IIB) functionality so that one entity could deliver shared services across many. Corporate functions, accounting, AP, fixed asset management, planning, and reporting all running cleanly across the entity structure, without the manual journal-entry drag that usually comes with multi-entity shared services.
Global financial management. Compliance. Payables. Fixed assets. Planning. Custom reporting. All on one instance.
The number that matters most at close.
Three days.
That is how long it takes Safe Harbor to close its books each month. Across 138-plus marinas, multiple entities, shared services, millions of transactions flowing in from a fleet of marina management systems.
That is what a NetSuite foundation looks like when it is built to scale with the deal cadence, not against it.
Ten years. One foundation.
In a decade, Safe Harbor went from 31 marinas to 138-plus. From a freshly formed brand to a $5.65 billion strategic sale. Through two ownership transitions and one move into public-company reporting.
The system underneath did not have to be torn down once.
That is the value of getting the foundation right at the starting line. And it is the value of a partner who is still there a decade later when the next inflection point arrives.
Building a roll-up and worried your ERP won't keep up?
If you are absorbing acquisitions, layering on entities, or staring at an ownership transition, the right NetSuite foundation can carry you through all of it. Let's talk about what yours could look like.
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