Alberto Galassi about the plans for the next five years
Ferretti Group blew up the yacht show in Cannes. This year, the company introduced twenty-five yachts, five of them world premieres. Six of brought Ferretti Group at the Cannes yacht took the award at the World Yacht Trophy. CEO of Ferretti Group Alberto Galassi (Alberto Galassi) gave an interview to French Forbes, which talked about the company’s plans for the next five years. Here are excerpts from there.
In the next five years we will see another Ferretti Group, which will be very different from that of the company, what you know today. We will support our development by purchasing a new production facility to increase our production capacity. At the moment we have almost exhausted our existing production facilities and infrastructure.
We have set ourselves a goal to reach profits of 1 billion euros.
We heavily invest in research and development of new products and design new models that, we hope, will always be better and prettier than the last.
In the next few years you will witness the emergence of a new brand in the portfolio of the group, maybe even two, and the opening of a new production site.
In 2019, we will release six new models. In the short term will be the first yacht of the Ferretti Group with a hybrid engine. I don’t believe in all-electric yachts, but I believe in hybrids. Why? Yes, because we are still not technologically ready to completely switch to electricity — not resolved the issue with batteries. The same problem is now acute in the world of production cars. But I am sure that hybrids will soon change the landscape of the yacht industry.
Within the group we have embarked on decentralization. The idea is that each of our employees has worked only with a certain brand and not all of the six. Let me explain: when the same team starts to work simultaneously on different brands there is a danger of mimicry, creative processes and mixture designs.
In 2012, the Ferretti Group has bought the Chinese company Weichai. Today she owns 86,82% stake in the group.
Weichai Ferretti brought in organization and discipline — two things necessary for good corporate governance, which prior to the Chinese property had not been held such a significant place in the corporate culture Ferretti.
Now we have, for example, every month to write a 100-page report.
Our new owner is also very interested in R&D, which is very valuable for the company. Indeed, even if we were to experience economic difficulties, which forced us to cut some expenditure items (Ferretti Group has returned to profitability in 2016), we would never have given the green light to cuts in investment in technology.
Weichai urges me — and even forces — to ensure the investment of the airbag cushion 30 million euros for the development of new models, search of new materials, engineering. it’s a Pretty rare approach, especially for Italy.
While our principal shareholder does not interfere in our creative process and our strategic solutions: we maintain complete freedom.
For many reasons, 2018, 2017 will be more difficult, especially due to the current geopolitical climate. A lot of uncertainty about the impact on business of political relations between the United States and Europe, Brexit, or the fact that Turkey and China are no longer markets, the Ferretti Group. So now people are in the standby mode. They weigh the pros and cons of buying a boat now or later. But despite this difficult context, we have already exceed our financial performance last year (for the first eight months of 2018, the Ferretti Group profit increased by 22% compared to the same period last year).
