Azimut Benetti, targeted growth and export plan to counter tariffs

Boats exported to the USA when tariffs were still at 10% and repositioning of Azimut's product range towards larger yachts, but also with innovative features in terms of lines and design, both to capture customers with greater economic means and to give an originality to production capable of giving it maximum appeal. All this with a 115 million investment plan, between 2024 and 2027, focused on infrastructure, to increase production capacity.

These are the main points of the strategy implemented by Azimut Benetti, the world's number one group in the production of yachts over 24 metres, to deal with the economic fallout caused by the world geopolitical situation and the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Giovanna Vitelli, president of the company founded by her father Paolo, and CEO Marco Valle recounted the path taken by the company during the Cannes yachting festival. At the French show, Azimut Benetti presented two brand new projects: a 27-metre yacht, inaugurating the third generation of the Magellano series (it will be ready by 2026) and, for the Benetti brand, the Bneos, an innovative 40-metre yacht in terms of design (by Malcom McKeon) inspired by the world of sailing yachts in terms of proportions and length, with which it shares, says Vitelli, the essentiality. It will only have hybrid propulsion and will be ready in 2028.

"Faced with a market that, after a long boom period, has been normalising for a year now and is therefore slowing down," explains Vitelli, "we have drawn up an investment plan for 2024-2027, some of which has already been grounded, worth 115 million, for infrastructure alone. When times like these come, the resilient segment is that of the larger boats; hence the strategy of shifting the axis a little towards larger boats on average, as well as concentrating on a few poles of excellence, in particular composite production and steel production for the smaller boats".

The company has, therefore, completed the restructuring of the historical headquarters in Avigliana (which has just been inaugurated) and, continues Vitelli, "we have created two hubs in Tuscany (one in the Pisa dockyard, for the production of so-called light steel, and one in Massa for fibreglass, ndr), which are added to Avigliana, where we already produced fibreglass but did so for small boats. In this way we create process control and increasing quality, for the 24 to 40 metre composite yacht segment, which is a market that has given us and is giving us a lot of satisfaction.

As for America, where the Azimut brand sells 30% of its production, says Marco Valle, "in the 90 days when tariffs were at 10%, we sent the US dealer not only the year's boats, which he still had to pick up, but also some extra product, so that we could get ahead at a more favourable time than now. So today, our US dealer has boats to offer in the US market that are still quite competitive. Also, we did this operation with a dollar that was still strong, not as weak as it is now. Any boat that is exported now from the EU, not only has a 15% tariffs, if it flies the American flag, but also has an effect on the European yard, because of the dollar situation, which is now at 1.18'.