INTERVIEW
MV AGUSTA'S GIOVANNI CASTIGLIONI
P90
Giovanni, last November you an-
nounced an agreement with an invest-
ment company named Black Ocean
Group. Who are the people behind this,
and what is your agreement with them?
Black Ocean is an investment company
based in New York, London and Luxem-
bourg, and it's owned by two people the
same age as me, more or less—a success-
ful British financial investor named Oliver
Ripley and his Russian partner Timur Sard-
arov. The Sardarovs are a very wealthy
Russian family with investments in tech-
nology, private aviation, real estate and
agriculture, amongst others. The two of
them were put in contact with me through
an advisor back in January this year—they
knew all about MV Agusta, and the status
of the brand both inside and outside the
motorcycle world. Both of them ride and
collect bikes, and Timur was already an
MV Agusta owner—he has a fantastic one-
off Dragster RR especially built for him. At
that stage we were still evaluating our posi-
tion, but then when it became apparent we
were heading to a restructuring of the busi-
ness, we started discussions about how
they might participate in a capital increase
in the company, while also bringing their
high-level managerial skills to MV. We've
reached an agreement for Black Ocean
to become a minority 35% shareholder in
(Above) Pictured
here is the MV
Agusta F4 RR.
The company
is being
repositioned to
manufacture
and sell fewer
but higher-
end bikes.
(Right) Giovanni
Castiglioni
took over the
company reins
following the
passing of his
father, Claudio.
