New Ferretti head rejects claims of breach of Italy's golden power rules

By Elvira Pollina

MILAN, June 17 (Reuters) - The new head of Italian yacht-maker Ferretti on Wednesday rejected allegations by the company’s second-largest investor that it breached Italy's golden power rules, designed to shield strategic assets, after a shareholder vote last month appointed a new board.

Czech investor KKCG Maritime urged the Italian government to act in the wake of a shareholder feud last month, when Ferretti shareholders sided with China's ​Weichai Group <000338.SZ> to end Alberto Galassi's 12-year tenure as CEO and replace him with Stassi ​Anastassov.

"The problem is not a fact-based problem. Nothing has really changed. I am as independent as the previous CEO was," Anastassov, a former Procter & Gamble executive, said during a press briefing in Milan.

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

Italy is investigating whether China-led investors breached golden power rules, which aim to protect the country's strategic assets, ‌by not revealing their full shareholding to Italian authorities, three government officials have told Reuters.

Anastassov said the company had not 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 said.

Regarding Ferretti's assets, Anastassov said the company has decided to shut down its small defence business in 2024 on the basis of a unanimous decision of the previous board.

"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.

"There is no order intake," he said.

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 countered that the company mainly just assembles products using technologies developed by others.

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Keith Weir and Edmund Klamann)