Cassiopea Partners acted as sole financial advisor to Wise Equity (“Wise”) in the acquisition of a majority stake in Cantiere del Pardo S.p.A. (“CdP” or the “Company”).
Cantiere del Pardo is an historical Italian shipyard. Founded in 1973, it has established itself as one of the main players of modern yachting, always offering to its loyal customers boats with elegant and innovative designs combined with high racing performance and superior quality. The shipyard achieved about € 58 million revenues in 2019/2020 and the order book for 2020/2021 projects a growth rate above 25%.
With this deal, the selling shareholders Gigi Servidati and Fabio Planamente, who will retain 40% of CdP, wanted to open the capital structure to an historical Italian private equity player, aiming at continuing the path they started in 2014. Today, the objective is to continue to invest in the offer of sailing boats and in the development of the powerboat segment. The goal, in line with the history of Cantiere del Pardo, is on one hand to strengthen the leadership in the 30-80 feet segment and, on the other hand, to evaluate opportunities for expansion in other segments also evaluating opportunities to acquire complementary and synergic brands with the current offer of Cantiere del Pardo, replicating the recent VanDutch brand acquisition.
Michele Semenzato, Wise Equity Founding Partner, said: “Cantiere del Pardo represents a history of great success in a sector in which Italy has strong tradition and world leadership. We are happy to be able to support an excellent management team that has achieved an incredible turnaround of the shipyard. Future projects include the development of both the sailing segment and the powerboat segment. In the former, the shipyard has a great tradition built on attention to design and construction quality, elements that will not only be maintained, but strengthened and placed at the base of the future developments. In the latter, the journey has just begun, but many successes have already been achieved and the goal is to build on this initial successful path”.
Fabio Planamente, CEO of Cantiere del Pardo, stated: “In the decision to open up the capital structure in order to provide additional resources for development of the company, we paid strong attention to the choice of the partner. We found in Wise Equity the partner we were looking for, not only for their twenty years of experience in accompanying medium-sized Italian companies in their growth and internationalization, but also for their industrial mindset that we are sure will allow us to have a shareholder sensible to the peculiarities of our sector”.
Gigi Servidati, President, commented: “The entry of the new shareholder Wise Equity has a strategic importance for us to ensure an acceleration in growth and the achievement of the many ambitious goals we have set ourselves. For us, this means having the strength and resources to develop new innovative models, both sailing and motor boats, that will meet the needs of shipowners who have been trusting us for years and who see our shipyard as a point of excellence. Having the resources to reduce the time to market of our models rewards the expectations of those who have believed for years in the strength of our premium brands: Grand Soleil Yachts, Pardo Yachts and, recently, VanDutch”.
Stefano Trentino, Founding Partner of Cassiopea Partners, asserts: “This transaction underlines Cassiopea Partners leading track record in advising financial sponsors in acquiring outstanding businesses”
Alongside Cassiopea Partners, Wise was assisted by Simmons & Simmons as legal advisors, KPMG as accounting advisor and Spada Partners as tax advisor.
Closing is expected to take place in December 2020.
