The company was founded in 1853 as Gio. Ansaldo & C.S.A.S. by renowned players in the Genoese business world, such as Giovanni Ansaldo, Raffaele Rubattino, Giacomo Filippo Penco and Carlo Bombrini. Until the end of the 19th century, the company focused on manufacturing and repairing railway components, quickly becoming a 10,000-worker company with seven factories, and starting to expand into sectors such as shipbuilding and mechanical works in general.
In 1904, Ansaldo was bought by Ferdinando Maria Perrone who, along with his sons Mario and Pio, bound the name of the Perrone family to the history of the company. Over the next twenty years, he aimed at making Ansaldo fully independent both in the ironworks and weapon-making areas, thanks to strong vertical integration. The onset of World War I was of obvious potential benefit to the company, though Italy was initially neutral. Ansaldo advocated for Italian entry into the war, both directly and by funding political groups that supported the war, such as Benito Mussolini's proto-Fascist movement.[1]
Following a financial crisis with its largest creditor, Banca Italiana di Sconto, and problems in reconverting factories after the end of World War I, the Perrone family abandoned the company in 1921, and the Banca d'Italia led a consortium to save it from bankruptcy. Company strategies were drastically sized down, and during the 1920s, even though electro-mechanical productions grew significantly, Ansaldo found itself in such dire difficulties that it finally entered the control of the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), under which the company found new life and growth, partly thanks to the new war effort during fascism. The main figure in this rebirth, the engineerAgostino Rocca, reconfigured the structure and organisation of the company during his tenure as chief executive officer from 1935 to the end of World War II. War contracts indeed led to a significant growth: Ansaldo had 22,000 employees in 1939, and 35,000 in 1943.
After the end of World War II, conversion to peacetime production again caused problems for the company. In 1948, IRI entrusted the company to Finmeccanica, which operated several reorganisation measures during the 1950s and 1960s, such as the relinquishing of all shipbuilding activities to Italcantieri of Trieste in 1966. From that year, Finmeccanica further engaged Ansaldo within its activities, and in 1980 they formed Italy's largest thermo-electric group. In 1993, Ansaldo ceased to exist as an independent entity, having been completely absorbed by Finmeccanica.
Aftermath in the 21st century
Some companies controlled by Leonardo S.p.A.[2] still bear the Ansaldo family name:
Nidec ASI (formerly Ansaldo Industrial Systems). Former Finmeccanica Company, sold to the Japanese Nidec Group, in 2012 Nidec acquired Ansaldo Sistemi Industriali SpA. and becomes Nidec ASI S.p.A. Nidec ASI is a manufacturer of electric motors, their products are found in electrical engineering, electric motors and generators, control systems and automation for industrial applications. Nidec ASI is headquartered in Milan and has different subsidiaries in Italy in Genoa, Montebello Vicentino, Monfalcone and abroad in China, France, Germany, Romania, Russia, Japan and Singapore.[3]
Products
Aircraft production
Ansaldo SVA 5
Ansaldo Baby (1915) single seat biplane reconnaissance floatplane, a British Sopwith Baby built under licence with minor changes
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