Ferretti assembly: Weichai secures majority for board renewal

Weichai secured the majority of votes at the Ferretti Group shareholders' meeting called for 14 May to renew the Board of Directors. The Chinese company holds the relative majority in the boating group through Ferretti International Holding, with 39.5% of the share capital.

The meeting opened with a dual request from the representatives of Azur, the company linked to Kkcg, which holds a 23.23% stake. Azur requested the immediate suspension of voting rights for Ferretti International Holding's entire stake in the company. As a subordinate request, it asked that the assembly be postponed until after the completion of ongoing checks by the competent authorities. Neither request was granted.

Azur's legal representatives argued that since 2016, Ferretti has operated an internal division dedicated to the development of defence vessels, called the Ferretti Security Division (FSD), which uses technologies developed in the civilian sector for the design and construction of military-use vessels for national and international institutional clients. According to Azur's account, based on public sources and press reports, the obligation to notify the Presidency of the Council of Ministers under the Golden Power regulation was never fulfilled by the Weichai group, which despite controlling Ferretti under Article 93 of the Consolidated Finance Act had knowingly operated in breach of those obligations.

Azur also raised the issue of recent share purchases. According to the minority shareholder, several individuals of Chinese nationality or otherwise connected to the Weichai group had recently acquired significant stakes in Ferretti ahead of the assembly. This circumstance, Azur argued, could amount to concerted action or conceal the existence of undisclosed shareholder agreements among the parties involved.

The consequences hypothesised by Azur operate on two regulatory levels. Under Italian law, there would be a breach of the disclosure obligations for shareholder agreements under Article 122 of the Consolidated Finance Act, with potential effects on the validity of assembly resolutions adopted with the decisive vote of those parties. Under Hong Kong law, where Ferretti is listed, those parties would be jointly obligated to launch a mandatory takeover bid for all Ferretti shares.

Azur stated that these concerns were the subject of a detailed complaint filed with the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and transmitted to Consob and to Ferretti on 11 May 2026.

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