Italian Sea Group files for protection, EUR 267m overdue
A blank composition, filed under Italy's Crisis Code
On 1 July the board of The Italian Sea Group filed a pre-emptive application, a so-called concordato in bianco, under Article 44 of Legislative Decree 14 of 2019. The move gives the group a court-set window, usually 30 to 60 days and extendable to 120, to draft a recovery plan while shielded from enforcement. The company said discussions with shipowners had reached a point where a purely negotiated fix no longer looked feasible. As of 31 May its net financial position stood at EUR 178.7m, bank debt at EUR 154.6m, past-due consolidated debt at EUR 266.8m and trade payables to suppliers at EUR 77.6m.
This is the second, harder stage of a process that began on 16 March with a lighter negotiated settlement overseen by the Court of Florence. Stepping up to a formal composition means the group could no longer hold every creditor at the table by agreement alone. For a builder whose order book is effectively its balance sheet, protection buys time but freezes the commercial room a yard normally uses to renegotiate a slot, a price or a spec.
Hidden overruns, a criminal complaint and a lost listing
The group blames the crisis on what it describes as a system used by former managers to bypass the spending caps set for each build, producing extra-budget costs across most of its orders. Chairman and controlling shareholder Giovanni Costantino, who holds his stake through GC Holding, filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Massa in early March and had already injected a EUR 25m shareholder loan on 18 February. KPMG Advisory was engaged in February to run a forensic review, with completion pushed back to around the turn of June and July. In May the board disclosed that losses had cut share capital below the legal minimum set by Article 2447 of the Civil Code.
The market reaction was severe. In mid-March the shares fell about 37 percent in a single session to around EUR 1.28, against a 52-week high near EUR 6.80, and on 22 May they dropped roughly another 37 percent after the capital-breach disclosure. The group had already left Borsa Italiana's STAR segment on 17 March. STAR status signals governance and transparency standards to institutional buyers, so leaving it removes the company from the shelf where much of that money shops.
Why owners with a hull in Carrara are watching the court
The sharpest issue for clients is contractual. After a hearing on 27 May, the Court of Florence ruled by mid-June that five shipowners fell outside the protective measures, finding their vessels were neither assets of the builder nor instrumental to its business. That freed those owners to terminate their contracts or enforce their rights under them. The brands at stake carry real weight: Admiral, Tecnomar, Perini Navi, Picchiotti, NCA Refit and Celi 1920, names with deposits and part-built hulls at Marina di Carrara.
For anyone with a boat on order, the case shows that a build contract is only as sound as the yard holding it, and that court protection can shield a builder from suppliers while owners wait for a plan. For the wider market it is a rare public view of how fast a listed yard can unravel when real costs outrun the budgets written into fixed-price contracts. The recovery plan TISG must file within the court's window will show whether the brands, and the half-built boats, change hands or stay put.