Black Shark torpedoes: what lies behind the sale of Wass from Leonardo to Fincantieri

Wass is about to pass from Leonardo to Fincantieri. A handover between two state-controlled companies, which comes after a long courtship lasting years. The shipbuilding company had already been interested in Wass, Leonardo's diving division, during the previous management of Giuseppe Bono, the defence industry veteran that the Draghi government replaced with Pierroberto Folgiero two years ago.

In Bono's time, negotiations never got off the ground, due to frosty relations with the then CEO of Leonardo, Alessandro Profumo. Now, however, with the new top management of both groups relations have improved, and a few months ago a collaboration agreement was even signed.

Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo's CEO from 9 May 2023, confirms that the agreement for the sale of Wass is imminent: 'We count on speeding up, we are talking about days and not months, because we would like to close this affair,' he added during a Uilm conference in Genoa, specifying that negotiations have slowed down due to 'temporary resistance' from internal managers. 'We are closing and we will do it quickly'.

Wass is based in Livorno, Italy, and operates in the underwater defence industry, producing torpedoes and sonars, with about 450 employees. Many years ago it was a mixed public-private company, between Iri's Finmeccanica and Fiat; at the time it was called Whitehead Alenia sistemi subacquei, then it became entirely part of the Finmeccanica group and kept the name Wass. In particular, Wass is responsible for the development of the Black Shark torpedoes, those that will equip the Italian Navy's U212 NFS submarines built by Fincantieri. Another product is the Mu90 lightweight torpedo.

During the stewardship of Mauro Moretti , who changed Finmeccanica's name to Leonardo and concentrated a large part of the operating companies and companies in the 'one company' parent company, Wass was merged into Leonardo. As of 1 January 2016, the activities of Wass were merged into the Defence Systems Division, as part of Leonardo's Electronics, Defence and Security Systems sector, together with Oto Melara of La Spezia, which produces land armaments (armoured and tracked vehicles, guns, bombs).