The historical Italian brand Perini Navi has been declared bankrupt

The Italian brand, an icon of yachting worldwide, risks disappearing from the market forever due to the severe financial crisis it has faced in recent years, leading to this sad outcome.

The property’s latest attempt, in May 2020, to present a restructuring plan for the Italian company’s accumulated debt was worthless.

The plan was not considered suitable by the court of the city of Lucca, which, a few days ago, declared Perini Navi‘s definitive bankruptcy.

The causes of Perini Navi’s bankruptcy

The Viareggio manufacturer, the legend of Italian shipbuilding, had already suffered a bad economic backlash in 2008 due to the financial crisis, which led to a global crisis. The economic crisis of those years affected the entire nautical sector, with a dramatic decline of over 90% and the failure of an impressive number of shipyards and operators.

The company’s slow decline began in these years, and it will no longer be able to recover, collecting a long series of errors that have condemned it to the sad ending we are witnessing today.

The first signs of the shipyard’s real difficulty date back to 2017, when the Tabacchi family became shareholders and, during the following year, acquired the majority of the company.

Unfortunately, the new management has failed to solve the shipyard’s problems, which are gradually worsening.

Thus, we come to the present day, when, crushed by over 100 million euros in debt, the company presented a restructuring plan that, among other things, provided for the entry of the Blue Sky investment fund with a capital share of 30 million euros.

However, the court considered the guarantees offered insufficient, and in recent days, bankruptcy was declared, the shipyard was put into provisional operation, and the bankruptcy trustee Franco Della Santa was placed at the helm of the company.

A final rescue hypothesis actually came from the Sanlorenzo shipyard, which seemed interested in taking over the company and had made an offer to the Tabacchi family a few months ago. However, everything was resolved in nothing.

Perini Navi: a brand rich in history and innovation

Perini Navi, founded in 1983, was, until the 2008 crisis, one of the stars of Italian shipbuilding worldwide.

Born from the genius of Fabio Perini, who was a worker in the paper district and made his fortune by inventing modern machines to produce soft toilet paper,

Over the years, this company’s success and fame grew considerably, becoming increasingly internationally known. Many illustrious personalities, such as Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi, trusted their yards.

The turning point that made this brand famous worldwide was the invention of the so-called “easy sailing,” a system that considerably reduces the number of crew members needed to steer large ships and yachts. How? The key was the invention of the reel captive winch, a system of automatic winches driven by electronically controlled electric motors that enabled a small crew to remotely control many previously manual operations.

Ships became works of art before the bankruptcy

Over the years, the Perini shipyards have given birth to some of the most admired boats ever.

Starting with the first sailing yacht built in 1983, the Felicità, which is 40 meters long (today Clan VI), this glorious brand has given life to many orders.

From the Maltese Falcon, an 88-meter-long sailing yacht armed with the so-called “Falcon Rig” with three rotating carbon masts and quadrangular sails for 2,400 square meters of surface, passing through the 48-meter Morning Glory sold to Rupert Murdoch, or even the 42-meter Princess Vaivia by Silvio Berlusconi, just to name the best known.

Since 2004, in September, a long series of yachts had an appointment in Porto Cervo, at the Costa Smeralda Yacht Club, for the Perini Cup, a Perini Navi-branded sailing regatta.

Now what?

Today, the only possibility for the brand to survive seems to be a bankruptcy auction. Among the possible participants are certainly the Italian shipyards Ferretti and Sanlorenzo, both of which had already expressed interest in the past.

The hope is that some of these big players will consider the investment opportunity and step forward to buy the company, thereby saving the prestigious brand and the approximately 100 jobs it guarantees.

The verification of the company’s liabilities is scheduled for June 22. Subsequently, it will take time to understand what will become of the factory.

Meanwhile, the company’s current employees will be partly laid off and partly continue working to finish the latest orders in progress, including Larry Ellison’s sailboat, the founder of Oracle.

View the Perini Navi yachts for charter.