Alberto Galassi stands on the shore of Lake Iseo in northern Italy with a picture-perfect scene in front of him. The blue water shimmers in the morning sunlight against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains.
Yet the diminutive, restless boss of yacht-maker Ferretti Group has his eyes fixed on a Riva Anniversario boat, upholstered in aquamarine-coloured leather and rocking gently in the water. As Galassi eulogises over the 22 coats of paint that give the boat its glossy finish, he suddenly cocks his head upwards and stares across the lake.
“You hear that? Those two V8 engines? That’s an Aquarama. Mamma mia,” the 59-year-old Italian exclaims, momentarily intoxicated by it all. The Aquarama is another boat from Ferretti’s acclaimed Riva range, which offers a slice of la dolce vita on the water for the global elite.
Ferretti makes everything from nippy James Bond-style speedboats to the gargantuan super yachts seen in the TV drama Succession. The cheapest Riva model — the 27ft Iseo — starts at €460,000 (£390,000) excluding VAT and delivery costs. At the top end of the price range sits the gigantic Riva 130 Bellissima — complete with five decks and a garage for your jet skis — at a €20 million starting price. The entire range is made by hand in Italy.
Galassi beckons me away from the lake and into the Riva members’ lounge, leaving a trail of cologne in his wake. He stops and gestures to a wall adorned with pictures of celebrities — including George Clooney, David Beckham and Claudia Schiffer — bobbing around in their Riva boats.
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“At the end of the day, what we are selling is freedom, privacy and lifestyle,” says Galassi in crisp, impressively fluent English. “If you take David Beckham or Elton John — clients who are also very good friends — is there a value for their privacy? On a boat you can spend time with your wife, your child or your friends, and you won’t be seen. In Italy, we have 60 million people and about 50 million paparazzi!”
As a proud Italian, Galassi cannot resist pointing out both of Ferrari’s Formula One drivers — Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz — pictured on the wall in their Rivas. I remind him that Britain’s Lewis Hamilton will be replacing Sainz next season. “He’s a Riva fan too,” he shoots back with a conspiratorial wink.
As well as its flagship Riva range, which makes up almost a third of Ferretti’s €1.1 billion sales, the group sells yachts under six other brands, including Wally and Pershing. In 2023, sales rose 11.5 per cent as healthy demand from the swelling ranks of millionaires in the Middle East offset a slowdown in America.
Yet back in 2014, when Galassi was appointed chief executive, Ferretti was in a parlous state. In 2006, the UK-based private equity firm Candover had led a €1.7 billion buyout that dumped €1.2 billion of debt onto Ferretti’s books. After Candover was wound down in the wake of the financial crisis, China’s Weichai Group took control of Ferretti via a debt restructuring in 2012.
“It had a very bad product range — a lack of taste, not enough money being spent on innovation,” Galassi recalls. Under Weichai’s ownership — it still owns 37 per cent of the shares — Ferretti has invested more than €500 million in its turnaround. Underlying profits swelled from €7 million in 2015 to €169 million last year.
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Ferretti floated on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2022 and listed on the Milan exchange last year. The company’s shares, which were priced at €3 on their debut, have held steady since — much to Galassi’s dissatisfaction: “We are very undervalued. I feel like we are the best-kept secret on the Milan stock exchange. We have ten years of history in which every year I am delivering better than the previous year.”
One analyst who tracks Ferretti said investors fret over the potential for Weichai — a Chinese state-owned conglomerate — to influence Galassi’s management. He insists Weichai is a “hands-off” owner.
“At some point investors will say, ‘These guys keep doing what they say they are going to do, and I can trust them with my investment.’ It’s a long run. I am not worried.”
We have decamped to the capacious, nautically themed office once occupied by Carlo Riva, the fourth-generation family member whose innovations turned Riva into an internationally recognised brand before being acquired by Ferretti in 2000.
Carlo Riva designed the first boat that Galassi fell in love with. When he was nine years old, in the summer of 1974, his father and two friends clubbed together to buy a Riva Rudy. Twenty years ago, he bought a Riva Aquarama for his own family.
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“I said to my wife and kids that when I am dead, they can sell everything — but if they sell the Aquarama, I will be the ghost in the castle every night in their nightmares,” Galassi recalls. In May, he will take delivery of a considerably grander vessel: a Custom Line Navetta 38, a 38-metre yacht boasting four decks.
Ferretti’s boss grew up in Modena, the town that gave the world Ferrari, Pavarotti, parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar. Business was in the blood for Galassi. As a 16-year-old he accompanied his uncle, a winemaker, on client visits to the Far East and America — and he soon realised that while he loved his homeland, it was too small to satisfy his curiosity. So he spent summers on exchange programmes that took him to New Jersey, London, Edinburgh and even Ipswich.
His remarkable grasp of English — he fires perfectly formed words at you with machine gun speed — suddenly makes sense. He has an affinity with the UK and an obvious distaste for Brexit.
Galassi has fond memories of London’s music scene in the 1980s, marvelling that while he once watched on starstruck as Simon Le Bon performed with Duran Duran, he now counts him as a good friend.
Ferretti’s boss is a world-class name-dropper. Galassi regales me with stories of yachting with David Beckham off the Amalfi coast and taking his son for a surprise dinner at Sir Elton John’s country pile near Windsor. And while many business leaders are fond of rolling out their favourite Warren Buffett quotes, Galassi recalls a conversation he had with the Sage of Omaha himself.
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It is not hard to imagine Galassi — self-confident, charming and never short of an anecdote — ingratiating himself with the rich and famous. Indeed, it’s very much part of the job. “Important clients want to look in your eyes before signing the cheque,” he says.
Galassi graduated with a law degree but turned his back on a profession that did not suit him. He willingly acknowledges that he has a limited attention span. “I am driven by curiosity. If a conversation is boring, I just switch off. Life is too short.”
He rose to prominence in Italy’s business world during his 13 years at Piaggio Aerospace, which manufactured helicopter engines and components for fighter jets.
At Piaggio, where he climbed from the sales and marketing departments to became chief executive in 2009, Galassi became close friends with the future Manchester City chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who led Abu Dhabi’s investment in the aerospace company in 2006.
Al Mubarak appointed Galassi to the board of Man City as a non-executive director in 2012. Despite the team’s success on the pitch, the club has been charged with 115 breaches of financial fair play regulations. “I am not entitled to discuss this, but perhaps you can tell from my body language I am super confident [about the outcome],” he says.
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Galassi is confident the future is bright for Ferretti, too. He believes the trend for younger and younger billionaires will provide a tailwind. “For the younger luxury buyers, the brand is more important. They want the beautiful design and immediate recognition that comes with owning a Riva,” he says.
Before Covid, yacht owners would typically stay on board for two or three weeks at a time. Now, Galassi reckons that “on-board duration” has tripled.
So, it’s perhaps not surprising that Ferretti’s clients are increasingly seeking to recreate their home life on their superyachts. They are swapping out bedrooms in favour of a gym, requesting larger televisions, and demanding Starlink — the internet service provider developed by Elon Musk — so they can get online anywhere in the world. Yes, working from yacht (or WFY, perhaps) is real — or so Galassi tells it. “Your boat becomes your office — clients work from the Med or the Caribbean. I get complaints sometimes when the wifi isn’t working 50 miles out to sea!”
As we wrap up and head back down the mahogany spiral staircase to the main lounge, Galassi implores me to read a tribute written by Simon Le Bon, the proud owner of a Riva Aquarama Special since 1984.
“It’s the most beautiful power boat ever designed,” gushes Le Bon,who recalls cruising around the Mediterranean with Bono and The Edge from U2.“I’m a musician and I think I can hear the engine notes and can tune them perfectly to each other.”
How Galassi would love Ferretti’s investors to show a little more of Le Bon’s enthusiasm.
THE LIFE OF ALBERTO GALASSI
Born: December 23, 1964
Status: married to Antonella for 26 years. They have two sons: Enzo, 36, and Pierro, 24
School: public school of Modena
First job: Rome-based lawyer specialising in international law
Pay: €4.45 million last year
Home: Galassi has homes in Modena, the Dolomites and Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany
Cars: Ferrari Purosangue and a Range Rover
Favourite film: La Grande Guerra (The Great War) and Barry Lyndon
Music: Coldplay, Duran Duran and Elton John
Book: Alexander Trilogy by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Watch: Rolex Daytona Paul Newman. Galassi owns a dozen different Daytonas
Drink: any wine from the Antinori winery in Tuscany, or a negroni cocktail
Gadget: iPhone
Charity: “We do a lot of charity as a company and a lot of charity as a family, but we don’t advertise it”
Last holiday: eating, resting and partying with friends in the Dolomites last Christmas
WORKING DAY
Alberto Galassi believes in the importance of the quality of his work, rather than the quantity, and refuses to sleep fewer than six hours a night. Ferretti’s chief executive typically arrives in the group’s Milan office at 9am. He splits his time between investor meetings, visits to the group’s shipyards and travelling to boat shows or client meetings around the world. He works until about 7pm.
DOWNTIME
Galassi says he is “addicted” to contemporary art. He loves visiting art galleries and playing his guitar (badly) for friends
