MILAN (Reuters) – Italian luxury yacht maker Ferretti is aiming to list in Hong Kong at the end of March through an initial public offering that could be worth between $400 million and $500 million, three people close to the matter said on Wednesday.
The group, which is controlled by Chinese conglomerate Weichai Group, is targeting a free float of around 25%, two of the people added.
Ferretti is currently meeting investors in Europe and Asia, looking also for cornerstone investors, the two people said.
The deal may yet face headwinds as equity markets across the world are disrupted by geopolitical turmoil due the threat of a full-scale war in Ukraine.
The Italian group declined to comment.
The yacht maker filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of December, with investment bank CICC as sole sponsor, but IPO details were not disclosed.
“We intend to meet the evolving demands in the luxury yacht industry, especially towards larger and more profitable yachts”, the group said in the filing.
In 2019 Ferretti attempted to list in Milan but eventually pulled out because it was not satisfied with the price. At that time the group was chasing a valuation of up to 1.08 billion euros ($1.2 billion).
Ferretti, which designs, produces and sells luxury composite and made-to-measure yachts, controls seven brands: Riva, Wally, Ferretti Yachts, Pershing, Itama, CRN and Custom Line.
The group’s revenues stood at 669 million euros for the first nine months of 2021, with an order backlog of 984 million euros and an adjusted core profit of 84 million euros, more than doubled compared to a year earlier.
Such growth will be hard to matched in the coming years, according to one analyst. Last year brought an order boom for the multi-billion-dollar global luxury boat industry as the number of billionaires grew and the pandemic added to incentives for avoiding crowds.
In the last two years, Italian rival Sanlorenzo and The Italian Sea Group listed on the Milan Stock Exchange.
($1 = 0.8816 euros)
(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin in Milan, Lucy Raitano in London and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
