Gruppo Antonini have raised their profile in the yacht industry by creating a new brand: Antonini Navi. This ambitious real-world project springs from an idea by Aldo Manna and has the full support of the Antonini family, with a planned investment worth over 10 million euros.
The new brand rests on three pillars: an enviable heritage of technical and commercial knowhow in the world of superyachts, the entrepreneurial flair of the Antonini family and the strategic location of the Cantiere Navale Marina di Pertusola shipyard in Muggiano on the Gulf of La Spezia, which is one of the world’s best-known yachting hubs. The shipyard will also be able to count on a team of top industry experts, all of them based in La Spezia.
The Antonini Navi brand will bring together the range of high-end marine services offered by Gruppo Antonini in order to provide the market with an all-round offering, from the construction of custom yachts (up to 70 meters in length) to services including refitting, after-sales and superyacht berthing, as well as continuing to build for third parties, as has been the case for years. The ambitious project will also embrace the creation of a line of yachts from 30 to 50 metres in length, designed by award-winning La Spezia architect and designer Fulvio De Simoni and named Crossover to signal its innovative nature and cross-market appeal.
Massimo, Lorenzo, Simone e Aldo
The new Antonini Navi brand has grown out of an insight from Aldo Manna, who was the first to realise the unexpressed potential of the Marina di Pertusola site and the entrepreneurial strength of the solid and well-structured Gruppo Antonini, which was founded just after the last war and is still run by the Antonini family (brothers Massimo, Lorenzo and Simone Antonini).
Gruppo Antonini S.p.A has been operating in the Oil & Gas sector since the second half of the 1940s, earning a reputation for its knowhow and capabilities in the global implementation of Offshore and Onshore projects, as a provider of engineering, procurement, production, testing and commissioning services for large oil platforms. Gruppo Antonini now boasts three production sites located in different areas: the Olmec Unit, the Oma Unit and the Muggiano Shipyard.
After specialising and expanding over the years to become an increasingly solid player with visibility on international markets and average annual sales of over 50 million euros, the group is now making its debut in the world of yachting alongside the other big names in the sector. Its technical knowhow and expertise in the fields of engineering, design, construction, assembly and maintenance, which few other marine operators can rival, represent the ideal platform to support the launch of a project like this.
Gruppo Antonini is now a consolidated industrial concern that has thoroughly rationalised its operating resources and is always setting itself new objectives in the sectors where it has a history of excellence (including the Oil & Gas industry, with the construction of large steel structures, industrial plant engineering, production of pressure equipment, and maintenance of complex plant), leveraging the skills of its human resources and advanced technology facilities.
“Antonini Navi is a dream that has always been dear to our family,” explains Simone Antonini, Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Antonini Navi. “In the 1980s, our grandfather Walter, who founded the business, recognised the enormous potential of the Pertusola site as a hub for yachting and related services. That is why we were so enthusiastic about Aldo’s proposal to set up Antonini Navi together. As well as being a great friend of mine since we were children, Aldo is someone who fully embodies the values of our business: family, hard work and determination. Aldo is also a formidable professional in superyacht construction and marketing and the right man to complete our team, with his constant focus on achieving new objectives.
Our family are firm believers in this project, which is why we’ve decided to invest 10 million euros to convert the entire La Spezia shipyard area and make a bold entrance into a sector where we already had a presence through refitting operations and contract production. We will never stop looking further into the future.”
“I’m honoured to be an integral and active part of the new brand,” continues Antonini Navi creator and partner Aldo Manna. “This is a great project with solid foundations: the Antonini family still runs the industrial group that bears its name as a ‘family business’, in which personal, human relationships are always the true cornerstone of the business model. Now more than ever, clients feel the need to deal directly with the owners of a shipyard and not just with investment fund managers.”
Another strength of this new brand is its engagement with some of the most reliable experts in the sector, all of them, without exception, from La Spezia and bound together by high professional and personal esteem.
Gruppo Antonini now has about 200 employees and 50 collaborators and several of them will be assigned to the new project, which focuses on four distinct areas of action, all based at Antonini Navi’s Marina di Pertusola headquarters.
La Spezia yard as it is now
Yard in La Spezia as it will be
1. Megayacht construction for third parties: shipyards or other sector operators contract out the construction of certain lines to Antonini Navi, which has an advanced production facility with systems and equipment for making steel hulls and superstructures.
2. Full Custom Yacht production: Antonini Navi can meet all requirements in terms of both size and category. The knowhow and expertise of its engineers, craftsmen and other professionals are backed up by advanced design systems, innovative technology and extensive production facilities, thus guaranteeing high standards of quality, safety and reliability, but also seaworthiness and focus on detail.
3. Refitting: operating out of its own shipyard, Antonini Navi will provide routine and extraordinary maintenance services for yachts of any size and level of wear, with the aim of prompt delivery while always ensuring the highest quality standards thanks to the installation of highly reliable, latest-generation technology. This is a field in which the group already operates, with major customers including the Italian Navy, for which it worked on the famous training vessel Vespucci, a splendid tall ship built in 1930.
4. Antonini Navi range: the yard will develop a full range of displacement and semi-displacement yachts (from 30 to 50 metres) designed by the brand’s internationally renowned Creative Director Fulvio de Simoni, whose work over the years has revolutionised aesthetic conventions in the yachting industry. The new line of yachts, Crossover, is a concept that embodies the excellence imprinted in the group’s DNA. The Crossover line’s common denominator is a voluminous but flowing design under the waterline and the contemporary lines. The first unit to be built will be the 130’ (40 m) Crossover, a yacht incapsulating all the features and potential of the line.
The new brand begins its journey in the world of yachting with a rich and concrete offer of services, which will allow it to stand out in the nautical panorama and conquer a large slice of the market thanks to its undoubted strengths.
