Aksia's MHI Group Buys the Portlight Maker Behind Ferretti and Riva

What did Aksia Capital VI buy when it acquired Amare Group?

Aksia Capital VI, an Italian private equity manager, has acquired 100 percent of Amare Group, the yacht-components division of Amare Srl, folding it into the MHI Group platform it launched in November 2025.

Marine Industry News reported the deal on 4 September 2026, and Italian trade titles Top Yachtdesign and Financecommunity.it carried matching detail the same week: Aksia Capital VI, a fund manager that says it has completed more than 60 transactions and put over EUR 600 million to work across five funds, bought the whole of Amare Group outright. Neither side disclosed a purchase price, Amare's revenue or its headcount, which is normal for an Italian mid-market deal of this size but leaves no public yardstick for how large a bet this is. Amare's chief executive, Michele Preziuso, stays in the role and is reinvesting alongside Aksia rather than cashing out and leaving, according to both Top Yachtdesign's report and Amare's own public statements around the deal.

Amare Srl was founded in 2012 and builds portlights and glazing systems, hydraulically operated gangways for boats over 100 feet, kinematic and hydraulic mechanisms, and wireless automation hardware, from two factories split between Modena in Emilia-Romagna and Pozzilli, in the Isernia province further south. Yachting News, which toured the Isernia plant, describes a chemical-welding process that bonds glass directly into portlight housings, hand-polished stainless steel and aluminium framing to avoid the industrial dulling that a machine finish leaves, and in-house manufacture of the cylinders used in its own hinge and lift mechanisms. Amare's own patents cover both finished products and the mechanisms inside them, points its development manager, Michele Preziuso in that capacity, credited to the company's engineering rather than only its finishing work.

Why is this Aksia's second yacht-component acquisition in under a year?

Amare is not a one-off purchase: it is the second leg of a platform Aksia built specifically to consolidate premium Italian yacht-component makers, after buying deck-hardware specialist Seasmart in November 2025.

Aksia Capital VI formalised its purchase of Seasmart, a Pesaro-based maker of mooring bitts, hatches, sea ladders and bimini hardware founded in 2007 by Mirko Antonelli, on 7 November 2025, and named the resulting platform MHI Group at the time. Amare, bought roughly ten months later, is explicitly framed by Aksia partner Filippo Anichini as continuing that plan: 'With Amare, we are taking the first concrete step in the aggregation,' he told Top Yachtdesign, naming further acquisitions in complementary product categories as the next objective. Aksia's investment director on the deal, Matteo Bertolo, is named alongside Anichini in the transaction's advisory coverage, underlining that this was run as a repeatable platform strategy rather than a single opportunistic buy.

The stated logic is horizontal, not vertical: Seasmart's deck hardware and Amare's glazing, gangways and automation systems do not overlap, so combining them under one ownership structure is meant to create cross-selling to the same shipyard buyers and a broader catalogue to sell into refit and service work, rather than to cut costs by merging factories or headcount. Aksia has said each company keeps its own brand and management, which is also why Amare's Preziuso stayed on rather than being replaced. Whether that separation survives a third or fourth acquisition, which Anichini has already signalled is coming, is the open question the platform has not yet had to answer.

Which yacht brands use Amare Group's portlights and glazing?

Amare's press material and independent trade coverage both name Ferretti, Azimut and Riva as customers, including the current-generation Riva 66 Ribelle, which puts this deal directly behind hardware on yachts already on the water and in build slots today.

Top Yachtdesign's report on the acquisition lists Ferretti, Azimut and Riva by name among Amare's shipyard clients, and singles out the Riva 66 Ribelle, launched this generation, as a model carrying Amare glazing and portlight hardware. Yachting News's factory report describes large yards sending glass panels directly to Amare's Isernia site so its technicians can fit portholes and glazing before the panels go back to the yard for installation, rather than Amare shipping finished units the yard fits itself, an arrangement that ties the supplier into the yard's own production schedule rather than sitting at arm's length as a parts catalogue.

That kind of integration cuts both ways for an owner. It means Amare's quality control is effectively part of the yard's own build process on any model that uses it, which is a reason the big Italian builders chose the supplier in the first place. It also means a change at Amare, whether in ownership, capacity or pricing, reaches those yards' current order books faster than a change at an arm's-length hardware vendor would, because the panels are already moving back and forth between the two production lines rather than sitting in a warehouse as interchangeable stock.

Does this acquisition change anything for someone who already owns a Ferretti, Azimut or Riva?

Nothing changes today on a yacht already delivered or mid-build, since the factories, management and client list are all unchanged, but a private equity platform that has explicitly said it plans more acquisitions is worth tracking if a build or refit specifies Amare glazing or hardware.

For an owner with an active build that specifies Amare portlights, glazing or a gangway, the practical question for the yard's project office is whether the supply contract runs directly with Amare Group as it now sits inside MHI Group, and whether that contract has any change-of-control clause, rather than assuming a private equity sale two steps removed from the yard has no bearing on delivery dates or spares. For an owner of an existing Ferretti, Azimut or Riva that already carries Amare hardware, the practical question is about long-term parts support: Isernia's stated spare production capacity is Aksia's own reason for buying rather than growing the business organically, which is a reasonable sign the plant is not about to be run down, but it is worth having the management company confirm who now holds the technical relationship for warranty and replacement glazing.

This is one node in a wider pattern this desk has covered twice in a week: private equity buying up the specialist suppliers behind an ambitious owner's brief, whether that is Isoclima's structural glass changing hands from one PE owner to a consortium of Italian growth funds, or Aksia's MHI Group rolling up deck hardware and now portlights under one platform with stated plans for more. None of it is a reason to walk away from a build or a resale. It is a reason to treat a supplier's own corporate stability, and who currently owns it, as part of the specification conversation with the yard rather than something raised only after a problem shows up.