The next Ferretti shareholders’ meeting, scheduled for May 14, will likely be decisive for the company’s future. Ferretti is a shipbuilding company specializing in the construction of luxury yachts: it was founded in Bologna by the namesake family and today is headquartered in Forlì; it is therefore an Italian company, but its largest shareholder is Chinese. The state group Weichai owns a 37.5 percent stake and, at the upcoming shareholders’ meeting, does not intend to renew the current CEO, Alberto Galassi (pictured), in office since 2014.
A CLASH OF SLATES
At the May 14 meeting, in short, there will likely be a clash between the Weichai slate and that presented by the second largest shareholder, the Swiss investment management group Kkcg, which owns 23.2 percent of Ferretti following a partial public tender offer.
– For further details: Ferretti: who will win between the Chinese Weichai and the Kkcg fund?
Kkcg confirms Galassi as CEO of Ferretti and proposes Karel Komárek, the Czech entrepreneur who chairs the fund, as chairman. The slate also includes Bader al-Kharafi (vice president of the Kuwaiti telecommunications company Zain), Piero Ferrari (vice president of Ferrari and Ferretti shareholder with 7.5 percent, already present on the current board) and Stefano Domenicali (CEO of Formula 1).
THE FUTURE OF FERRETTI
Interviewed by Sole 24 Ore, Galassi outlined Ferretti’s plans for the future: or rather, the plans that will be implemented if Kkcg’s line prevails at the meeting and he is confirmed as CEO. The company – he said – will focus on the development of the Security & Defence division (whose head, Giuliano Felten, joined Kkcg’s operation) and on new mergers and acquisitions, with a buyback of shares and a long-term incentive program for executives.
“Frankly, I can’t understand what Weichai’s industrial project is,” Galassi said. The Chinese state group could appoint Stassi Anastassov as the next CEO, a Swiss financier of Bulgarian origin who worked for thirty years at Procter & Gamble and is involved in various Chinese business ventures.
THE DETERIORATION OF RELATIONS WITH WEICHAI
In the interview, Galassi nevertheless expressed gratitude towards Weichai, which invested in Ferretti in 2012 “when no white knight, neither Italian nor from other countries, nor any fund did; despite Ferretti having important brands like Riva, the Ferrari of the sea.” He particularly recalled the good relations with the Chinese entrepreneur Tan Xuguang.
Since Tan’s resignation as Ferretti chairman in 2024, however, “much has changed.” “From then until 2026,” he recounts, “there have been two leadership changes and three different chairmen of Ferretti spa. All accompanied by a certain inertia. While before there was a more entrepreneurial vision, driven by a desire for national or international expansion, I found myself with a much more conservative board, resistant to acquisition operations and proposals for the development of the defense division.”
BETWEEN DEFENSE AND GOLDEN POWER
If Kkcg’s line – and slate – were to win at the May 14 shareholders’ meeting, Galassi said he wants to restart from defense, also considering the growth of global investments in this sector. “We have contracts won that are ending, like for the carabinieri and navy, and we can get new ones. The goal,” he added, “is dual use, that is also for defense, of hulls originally designed for civilian use, as happens in aeronautics with the Piaggio P180.”
However, it remains to be seen whether these plans – in particular the expansion into a sensitive sector like defense – are compatible with the strong presence of a Chinese state company in the shareholding. The Italian government, moreover, has already intervened with golden power in dealings between various Italian companies and their Chinese shareholders to protect national security: the best-known case is that of the tire company Pirelli with Sinochem (another state company), but the government has also imposed conditions on the acquisition of the majority of EuroGroup Laminations (which manufactures electric motor components) by the Chinese fund FountainVest.
It is also unclear whether the dilution of Weichai’s stake in Ferretti’s shareholding, given Kkcg’s rise, is sufficient to “exorcise” the specter of golden power. In Pirelli, Sinochem owns 34.1 percent and Marco Tronchetti Provera’s stake has risen to 26.2 percent, but the government still intervened with special powers.
