Italian Sea Group's Own Asia Agent Bids to Buy the Whole Yard

Who is Traugott Kaminski and why has he bid for Italian Sea Group?

Kaminski is the executive who has sold Admiral and Tecnomar yachts across Greater China and wider Asia since 2016, and on 7 September he filed a Hong Kong-backed expression of interest to buy the whole of The Italian Sea Group through a new entity, T.I.S.G.-Asia Investment Holding Limited.

Kaminski founded T.I.S.G.-Asia in 2016 specifically to represent the group's Admiral and Tecnomar brands across the region, a relationship that has continued through the parent company's several changes of ownership since. Before that he ran Sunseeker China from 2003 and represented Sanlorenzo in Greater China, work that earned him the nickname the Godfather of Yachting in Chinese trade press. That history is the substance of his pitch: unlike the industrial and financial groups already circling the sale, he already knows the dealer network, the build slots and the customers on both brands' order books.

The filing went to the Court of Florence on 8 September, under Article 44 of Italy's Code of Business Crisis and Insolvency, the same court-supervised process that has governed the sale since the parent company's insolvency filing in July. International Boat Industry first reported the bid on 7 September; Marine Industry News and Powerboat News each corroborated the entity's structure and terms the same week.

Who is actually financing the Kaminski bid?

T.I.S.G.-Asia is owned 50-50 between Kaminski personally and Lit Yachting Limited, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong single-family office TGG Group, whose founder Barry Lau has pledged an immediate capital injection rather than a debt-financed purchase.

TGG Group describes itself as a single-family office deploying its own permanent capital across lifestyle, sport, media and alternative strategies, which Lau frames as an advantage over a leveraged buyer in a business that needs cash now, not credit. 'This shipyard has suffered from capital starvation and legacy inefficiencies,' Lau said. 'We are here to stabilise the foundation, fix the operational bottlenecks, and ensure the yard keeps building the world's finest superyachts in Italy for decades to come.' The proposal is built on three stated pillars: transparency with the court and creditors, a financial triage of the balance sheet, and an operational stabilisation programme aimed at the production bottlenecks that have delayed hulls across the group's Italian yards.

Kaminski's own commitments go further than financing: completing the existing order book, protecting jobs, and keeping production, the four brands and their craftsmanship in Italy under a newly formed European executive team rather than moving decisions to Hong Kong. 'The true value of this shipyard does not live on a spreadsheet,' he said. 'It lives in the hands of our shipwrights, engineers, artisans and designers.'

Who else is bidding for Italian Sea Group?

Kaminski's bid does not clear the field this desk has tracked since August, it adds to it: the Sanlorenzo-backed consortium remains the process's front-runner five weeks in, Baglietto still wants only the La Spezia yard, and SRI Global and Finvacchi are still named as independent contenders.

The Sanlorenzo-backed consortium, in which Sanlorenzo itself holds roughly 10 per cent alongside two or three other shipyards of international standing, confirmed its interest on 11 August and has bid for the entire business, its yards, its Turkish subsidiary and all four brands together, the same all-in structure Kaminski is now proposing. Baglietto's bid, confirmed 25 August, covers only the La Spezia site, the former Perini Navi hull-building facility the group absorbed in 2021. Giulio Gallazzi's SRI Global and Bernardo Vacchi's Finvacchi remain named as separate, narrower contenders in Italian financial press.

What sets Kaminski apart is not the size of the bid, which like the others is non-binding and carries no disclosed price, but the relationship: he is the only bidder who already sells the brands he wants to buy, rather than a shipbuilder eyeing capacity or a financial firm eyeing distressed assets. Whether the court and creditors value that continuity over a rival's balance sheet is exactly what the next stage of the process will decide.

What is the timeline for Italian Sea Group's sale now?

The court's clock has not moved for the new bidder: non-binding offers, Kaminski's included, are due by noon on 15 September, a Florence court hearing follows on 16 September, binding bids are due 15 October, and the group has set 26 October as its target signing date.

Those September and October dates were already public before Kaminski filed; his bid simply has to clear the same gates as every other. The 15 September deadline and the 26 October signing target match what this desk reported on 4 September, when the group's overdue debt stood at EUR 270 million, itself up from the EUR 267 million reported when the company first sought court protection in July. The newly confirmed 16 September court hearing is the first point at which Florence's judicial commissioners will see every non-binding offer, Kaminski's alongside Sanlorenzo's, Baglietto's, SRI Global's and Finvacchi's, side by side. The financial backdrop has also worsened: Maritime Executive reports the group's FY2025 revenue at USD 345 million, down 25 per cent from USD 460 million in FY2024, with EBITDA swinging from a positive USD 80 million to a loss of USD 115 million over the same period, a reversal this desk first reported on 15 August and attributed largely to management failures under the previous board.

Nothing about that hearing forces a decision. Its purpose is to let the commissioners narrow the field before the binding-bid stage, which is where price, financing proof and completion guarantees actually get tested. A bidder eliminated on 16 September is out; one that survives still has five weeks to firm up the numbers this week's filing does not disclose. Meti Corporate Finance and KPMG Advisory, the same firm engaged for the group's earlier forensic review, are running the confidential bidder-selection stage on the court's behalf.

What should an owner with a hull at Admiral, Tecnomar, Perini Navi or Picchiotti do now?

Nothing changes today: no bid is binding, the court has not named a preferred buyer, and every existing build contract stays with The Italian Sea Group under the Florence court's supervision exactly as it has since July.

The detail worth watching is structure, not name. A whole-company buyer, whether that ends up being the Sanlorenzo consortium or Kaminski's TGG-backed entity, would most likely keep every brand's build slots and warranty obligations under one roof. A yard-by-yard outcome, the shape of Baglietto's narrower bid, could leave a brand and the physical yard building its hulls under two different new owners, an outcome that matters for anyone relying on the brand's name behind a warranty.

The sale also does not touch the group's separate legal exposure, which continues regardless of who buys the yards: a criminal complaint over cost overruns tied to the company's 2026 financial crisis, and the EUR 456 million civil claim The Italian Sea Group itself filed in a Sicilian court over the 2024 sinking of the Perini Navi sailing yacht Bayesian, naming the vessel's registered owner and crew. Both proceed on their own timetables, and a change of ownership at the yard will not resolve either one.