Ferretti’s new CEO, Stassi Anastassov, has publicly denied KKCG Maritime’s allegations of breaching Italy’s golden power rules at a press briefing in Milan, according to Reuters.

KKCG Maritime, the maritime-focused vehicle of KKCG, the investment group founded by Czech billionaire Karel Komárek, has urged the Italian government to act in the wake of a shareholder showdown last month, when Ferretti shareholders sided with China’s Weichai Group to end Alberto Galassi’s tenure as CEO and replace him with Anastassov.

“The problem is not a fact-based problem. Nothing has really changed. I am as independent as the previous CEO was,” says former Procter & Gamble executive Anastassov.

KKCG Maritime raised its stake in Ferretti to about 23 per cent, aiming to confirm Galassi and reshape a board dominated by representatives of Weichai. The Chinese group has a 39.5 per cent stake.

The China-backed investors are reportedly being investigated by Rome officials over whether golden power rules, which aim to protect the country’s strategic assets, by not revealing their full shareholding to Italian authorities.

Under Italian legislation, ownership in any Milan-listed strategic company owning defence or security assets when it crosses thresholds set at 3 per cent, 5 per cent, 10 per cent, 15 per cent and other intervals up to 50 per cent must be approved by the cabinet office.

The cabinet office has the authority to impose conditions on the relevant shareholding, veto specific corporate transactions or, in cases judged sufficiently serious, order the partial unwinding of stakes held in violation of the rules. That latter would pose a particularly acute problem for Weichai, given the scale of its position.

Anastassov denies that the company has been informed of any probe. “I am totally happy if there is an investigation because there is nothing and we would support any fact-finding,” he says.

Notably, Ferretti has opted to shut down its small defence business in 2024 based on a unanimous decision of the previous board.

The division centred on the delivery of patrol and law enforcement vessels to government clients. It’s a niche but strategically flagged category of activity that invited regulatory attention even before the current ownership dispute arose. It was never a core commercial pillar for the group, but its existence is precisely the hook upon which KKCG’s golden power argument hangs.

“There is no order intake,” Anastassov adds. “We are not actively selling anything sensitive today,” the executive said, adding that the company only has some maintenance contracts for patrol vessels it had delivered in the past remaining in place.

KKCG has said Ferretti would be subject to Italy’s golden power rules both because of its ownership of a defence division and because of the strategic nature of the whole of the business. Anastassov counters that the firm only assembles products using technologies developed by others.

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