A prestigious award for Pershing in China: "Best Performance Yacht 2008" on the basis of the famous "Best of the Best" poll.

On Thursday, January 10th at an award ceremony held in Shanghai, Pershing, the Ferretti Group brand and famous Italian shipyard specialised in the production of luxury yachts, was presented with the prestigious Best Performance Yacht 2008 award, on the basis of the statistics established in the "Best of the Best" survey. This demonstrates for the second year running that the Chinese market and its rapidly expanding class of entrepreneurs see the Marches-based company as one of the most prestigious "Made in Italy" brands.
Best of the Best is a highly authoritative poll conducted annually by the editors of "The Hurun Report", China's main finance and lifestyle magazine. The aim of the survey is to provide an in-depth analysis of the lifestyle and shopping habits of China's leading business figures.

The survey, conducted between April and November 2007, analysed the shopping habits of 650 Chinese entrepreneurs in order to define what the businessmen guiding the world's most flourishing economic market, buy and how they spend their money. The names these figures expressed preferences for included major car manufacturers, famous designers, luxury resorts and the distinctive style of Pershing that elegantly combines technology, performance and design.

The results of the poll were presented during a gala evening held in the Shangri-La China Hall at the Hotel Pudong in front of a public of 500 guests, including managers from all the most important luxury brands and many other leading Chinese business figures.

This prestigious award fits perfectly into the wider Pershing strategy that is currently establishing an important position for the brand in new, up and coming spheres like the various Asian markets that are maturing rapidly in terms of yachting culture. Heading towards new markets is one of the major assets of this company that has always been committed to creating products with superior design features and the highest standards of technology.

"We are extremely proud of this award that clearly shows the great care that Pershing has taken in meeting the requirements of a market, like China, that is becoming increasingly more important," stated Tilli Antonelli, the Pershing President and founder. "After years of extraordinary growth in the so called "mature" markets of America and Europe, I firmly believe that luxury sector companies must now find new stimuli and lifeblood in the Asian markets that are ready to welcome innovatory, high quality products."

This theory is supported by an extremely significant statistic that emerges from the latest survey published by the Hurun Report. The report shows that the number of billionaires in China is growing at an incredible rate, which makes China an extremely important strategic market for any luxury brand that wishes to win over the best customers. As today, the best customers are the nouveaux riches who are ready to spend large sums of money on the most exclusive products the market has to offer. And if they are "Made in Italy", well even better.