The Bologna-based shipbuilding company Ferretti has announced today the filing of the extract of the agreement between Azùr and Kuwaiti entrepreneur Bader Nasser al-Kharafi.
Azùr is a company of the Swiss investment management group Kkcg, which owns 23.2 percent of Ferretti’s share capital. Bader al-Kharafi is vice president of the Kuwaiti telecommunications company Zain.
The agreement between the two parties provides for the inclusion of al-Kharafi in the list presented by Kkcg for the renewal of Ferretti’s board of directors and a mutual commitment to vote in favor of the list presented by the Swiss group at the shareholders’ meeting, which will be held on May 14 and will likely prove decisive for the company’s future.
WHO ARE FERRETTI’S SHAREHOLDERS
The largest shareholder of Ferretti is, in fact, Chinese: it is the state-owned group Weichai, which owns about 37.5 percent. Not surprisingly, the company is listed both in Milan, since June 2023, and in Hong Kong, China.
The second largest shareholder is Kkcg, a group founded and chaired by Czech entrepreneur Karel Komárek. In January Kkcg had announced plans to increase its stake and indeed, through the partial takeover bid in mid-April, it raised it from 14.5 percent to 23.2 percent.
The list of Ferretti shareholders also includes, with about 5 percent, Danilo Iervolino, who controls the publishing house Bfc Media and is president of the Salernitana football team. Piero Ferrari, vice president of Ferrari, owns around 7.5 percent.
WEICHAI VS KKCG
When announcing the partial public takeover offer on Ferretti months ago, Kkcg presented itself as a “European investment and innovation group” driven by a “long-term” and “responsible” approach, not aimed at the company’s delisting but at its “growth and development.” This emphasis on European identity, combined with the desire to expand the board of directors, seemed to hide Kkcg’s ambition to rebalance the power dynamics with the Chinese shareholder. Currently, Weichai controls six out of nine seats on Ferretti’s board of directors, whose chairman is – indeed – Chinese: Hao Qinggui. The executive director, Tan Ning, is also Chinese.
In view of the May 14 meeting, Kkcg has presented a list opposing that of Weichai for the composition of the next board of directors.
Kkcg confirms Alberto Galassi (in the photo) as Ferretti’s CEO and proposes Komárek as chairman. Among the members are also the aforementioned Bader al-Kharafi and Piero Ferrari (already on the board), plus Stefano Domenicali (CEO of Formula 1) and Francesca Filippini Pinto.
Weichai’s list, on the other hand, is heavily Chinese in composition and proposes Tan Ning (the current executive director) as the next chairman of Ferretti. A notable name on the list is Donatella Sciuto, rector of the Politecnico di Milano: the university is quite close to China, having signed collaboration agreements and strategic projects with about thirty Chinese universities.
IS WEICHAI’S PRESENCE A SECURITY ISSUE FOR FERRETTI?
It is true that Ferretti builds luxury yachts. But the scope of national security today is decidedly broader than in the past, and after all yachts – somewhat like cars – have become “technological platforms” capable of collecting and processing large amounts of potentially sensitive data through navigation and satellite communication systems. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the presence of a Chinese state-owned company, Weichai, among the shareholders could prove problematic for the governance and business of the company.
Moreover, the Italian government has already intervened with golden power in dealings between various Italian companies and their Chinese shareholders: the best-known case is the tire company Pirelli with Sinochem (another state-owned company), but the government also imposed conditions on the acquisition of the majority of EuroGroup Laminations by the Chinese fund FountainVest.
On this subject, almost three years ago Galassi said that Ferretti did not risk problems with golden power: “in 2022, on the occasion of the listing in Hong Kong, we asked the then Italian government [Mario Draghi’s, editor’s note] about our situation regarding golden power and were told it was not applicable. This year [i.e., 2023, editor’s note] we asked again and were confirmed the same inapplicability.”
THE MOVE BY THE SECURITY MANAGER
The existence of concerns about Weichai’s interest in Ferretti’s technologies (perhaps with a view to possible military applications) seems to be confirmed by the participation of Ferretti Security & Defence manager Giuliano Felten in the partial takeover bid promoted by Kkcg: Felten has indeed tendered 326,000 shares.
