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Ferretti's CEO publicly attacked its **67.5%** Chinese owner ahead of a proxy fight, testing whether luxury brand operators can resist majority-shareholder strategy.
67.5%
of the Italian yacht builder
€1.4bn
enterprise value and builds Riva
2012
for roughly
€374m
and has since injected capital for facility expansions in…
Alberto Galassi, chief executive of Ferretti Group, used the Financial Times to criticize Weichai Power, the Chinese engine manufacturer that owns 67.5% of the Italian yacht builder. The public attack—unusual for a sitting CEO against his majority shareholder—comes weeks before an April shareholder meeting where Weichai is expected to challenge board composition. Ferretti trades at roughly €1.4bn enterprise value and builds Riva, Pershing, and Custom Line hulls for clients who measure net worth in nine figures.
Galassi told the FT that Weichai has shown insufficient understanding of luxury maritime operations and has pushed for cost structures incompatible with bespoke yacht construction. He stopped short of naming specific board proposals but indicated governance friction over capital allocation, R&D spend, and succession planning. Weichai acquired control of Ferretti in 2012 for roughly €374m and has since injected capital for facility expansions in Forlì and La Spezia. The partnership delivered revenue growth—Ferretti reported €1.08bn in sales for 2023, up 22% year-over-year—but Galassi's comments suggest philosophical divergence on how to allocate retained earnings in a cyclical, reputation-sensitive industry.
The public rebuke signals that Galassi believes he has board support or external shareholder backing sufficient to withstand a Weichai countermove. Italian luxury industrials often attract family-office and sovereign-wealth interest when governance disputes surface; Ferretti's client list doubles as a Rolodex of potential rescue capital. If Weichai forces a vote and loses, it faces the choice of selling down its stake or accepting diminished operational influence over an asset it has held for twelve years. If Weichai wins, Galassi likely exits, and the company tests whether Chinese manufacturing discipline translates to the 80-to-120-foot superyacht segment, where brand heritage and artisan labor command price premiums detached from cost-plus logic.
Proxy advisory firms will circulate recommendations in mid-March. Allocators should monitor whether ISS or Glass Lewis flag Weichai's board slate as lacking maritime or luxury-sector experience; such language would give institutional holders cover to vote against the majority owner. Secondary trading in Ferretti debt—the company carries roughly €340m in net borrowings—will show whether credit markets price in governance risk or see this as theater. Any uptick in Ferretti's €100m term loan B spread above EURIBOR + 375bp would indicate lender concern about strategic continuity.
Galassi's next scheduled public appearance is the Versilia Yachting Rendez-vous in early May. If he's still CEO, the message is that operational expertise won the vote. If not, the question becomes who Weichai installs and whether order books hold through the transition. Ferretti's 2024 backlog stood at €1.6bn as of December, roughly eighteen months of production. That window is the runway for this to resolve cleanly or become a case study in what happens when industrial logic meets handmade scarcity.
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For the principal
If you own Ferretti debt, sell hedges now; proxy uncertainty rarely compresses spreads in sub-investment-grade maritime names before resolution.
For the operator
Watch for ISS proxy guidance in mid-March; a flag on Weichai's board nominees shifts probability heavily toward Galassi retaining operational control.
For the house
No position, but tag this as template for when governance disputes surface in family-office-adjacent luxury industrials with concentrated ownership structures.
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