Assets Group's 18-Yacht Azimut Fleet Lands on Two Maldives Resorts

What exactly did Assets Group and Azimut Yachts agree to?

Assets Group will operate 18 Azimut yachts as a dedicated fleet for Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi and Rosewood Ranfaru Maldives, under an agreement signed on 13 September 2026 aboard Azimut's new Grande 44M flagship at the Cannes Yachting Festival.

Pressmare and Hotelier Maldives both named the same three executives on the agreement: Marco Valle, chief executive of the Azimut-Benetti Group, Khaled Zi Alnon, group chief executive of Assets Group, and Enrico Chiaussa, Azimut Yachts' chief commercial officer for EMEA and APAC. Valle called it a milestone for the builder across two dimensions at once, product and market. Alnon put the ambition in plainer terms, saying Assets Group would become the operator of the largest private luxury yacht fleet in the Indian Ocean. Neither statement was hedged with a smaller regional claim, and no rival operator's fleet size was cited for comparison.

Assets Group is the hospitality arm of Power International Holding, the Qatar-based conglomerate founded by Moutaz Al-Khayyat and Ramez Al-Khayyat, and it already runs 22 hotels and resorts and 16 residential and commercial properties across 12 countries. Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi carries Hilton's flagship luxury brand, while Rosewood Ranfaru Maldives belongs to a separate five-star operator entirely. Putting one yacht operator across both properties is unusual for two resort brands that otherwise compete for the same guest, and it is Assets Group, not either hotel chain, that owns the boats and the relationship with Azimut.

Which yachts make up the 18-boat fleet?

Fifteen of the 18 yachts come from Azimut's Magellano Series, the trawler-hulled long-range line that now runs from the 25M up to the newly launched 26.2-metre Magellano 27M, while the other three hulls have not been identified by either company.

The Magellano line trades speed for range, built around a trawler-derived hull, an elevated wheelhouse and a seakeeping-first philosophy that Boatnews.com describes as suited to speeds between 12 and 24 knots rather than a flat-out cruise number. The Magellano 27M made its world premiere at the same Cannes Yachting Festival where this deal was signed, designed with Ken Freivokh's studio for wide-body glazing and an open, light-filled interior. For a fleet spread across Maldivian atolls, a hull designed to cover distance efficiently in open water is a more practical fit than Azimut's faster flybridge lines, which is presumably why the Magellano was picked for the bulk of the order.

What is missing is any public accounting of the other three yachts. The agreement was formalised aboard the Grande 44M, Azimut's new flagship in its faster, more overtly styled Grande range, which raises an obvious question neither Pressmare nor Hotelier Maldives answers: whether those three hulls are Grande-series boats bought for a different role, such as a resort owner's hosting duties or a faster inter-island transfer, or something else again. Until Azimut or Assets Group names them, a buyer comparing the two lines has no way to know which one a resort operator picked for the remaining fifth of its own fleet.

Are both named resorts actually ready for this fleet?

Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi has been operating since it opened on 1 July 2019, while Rosewood Ranfaru is not due to open until 2027, so the fleet Assets Group describes as launching in 2026 can only be working at one of its two named resorts for most of that time.

Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi was Hilton's second luxury resort in the Maldives after Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, opening on 1 July 2019 across a main island, a family island and a private island, with a villa count that resort listings put between 117 and 122 depending on how family and private-island units are counted. It is an established, fully staffed property that can put a fleet to work immediately.

Rosewood Ranfaru is a different story. Travelsort and Dreaming of Maldives both report the resort, developed by Qatar-based Estithmar at a cost of roughly USD 343 million, has slipped from an original 2025 target to a 2027 opening, across some 120 villas on a series of private islands in South Male Atoll. Rosewood's own announcement in 2023 first put the property on the calendar years before this yacht deal existed. Neither Pressmare nor Hotelier Maldives mentions the gap, but it means whatever '2026' means for this fleet, it is a Waldorf Astoria story first and a Rosewood one only once Ranfaru itself is open for guests.

Why does the scale of this deal matter to an owner or buyer?

Alnon's claim to the largest private luxury yacht fleet in the Indian Ocean matters to an Azimut owner because it multiplies the brand's daily visibility and creates a large, continuously operated proving ground for the Magellano hull in exactly the tropical, multi-atoll conditions a long-range cruising buyer is weighing it against.

Most of what an owner or buyer learns about how a hull performs over years, rather than over a single sea trial, comes from charter operators and fleet managers who run boats hard in real conditions. A concentrated, 15-strong Magellano deployment gives Azimut a single, large-scale reference fleet for exactly that kind of evidence, assuming Assets Group or the resorts eventually publish anything about how the boats hold up. Power International Holding's backing also means the fleet sits inside a conglomerate with the balance sheet to maintain it properly, rather than a smaller charter operator stretching a marketing budget over 18 hulls.

There is a resale angle too. A yacht line that a five-star hospitality group chooses at volume, across two resort brands rather than one, carries a market signal that a single retail sale does not: someone who runs a hospitality business for a living decided the Magellano's economics and seakeeping justified committing to 15 of them instead of a mixed fleet from several builders. Whether that signal holds up depends entirely on how the fleet performs once it is actually in daily service, and for now that service exists at only one of the two named resorts.

What details are still missing from this announcement?

Neither company has disclosed guest pricing, a firm delivery timetable for the fleet at Ithaafushi, or the identity of the three yachts outside the Magellano Series, leaving the operational side of the deal entirely unpublished.

Both Pressmare and Hotelier Maldives cover the corporate side of the announcement in full, naming every executive and both resorts, but neither says what a guest actually pays to use one of these yachts, whether access is bundled into a resort stay or booked and charged separately, or how availability is split once Ranfaru eventually opens and both properties want the same boats. A new Azimut Service Centre in Male is confirmed, backed by the builder's own Italian technical team and Elite Yachts, its existing Middle East partner, but no opening date for that centre has been published either.

The fleet is also too new for any independent report from a guest, a captain or a charter broker who has actually used one of these boats. That is normal for an agreement days old at the time of writing, and this desk found no owner or operator account to cite honestly. Pricing, the identity of the remaining three hulls and a real delivery date for the boats themselves are the ones worth watching for as 2026 runs on.