Seventy-5 years of history of the Italian aerospace, defence and safety business, and of its markets, technologies and persons. Seventy-5 years of financial, social and cultural improvement in our nation and the communities served. For the reason that the history of Leonardo, established on 18 March 1948 below the name Finmeccanica, is the typical thread operating by means of the evolution of Italy’s manufacturing business due to the fact the finish of the Second Globe War. An original essential to interpretation of these 3 quarters of a century of history is provided in the volume “Leonardo. Motore industriale e frontiera tecnologica dell’Italia”, (“Leonardo: Italy’s industrial engine and technological frontier”), written by Il Sole 24 Ore correspondent Paolo Bricco and published by il Mulino.

As Bricco states in the new book, “Leonardo is an expression of its age, of the age of globalisation and hypertechnological capitalism, as nicely as of the age of Italy, producing an important contribution to the physiology of the country’s business”. 5 essential moments from the company’s 75-year history all share the similar continuous: the presence of strategic technologies for the industrial improvement of Italy and its companion nations. The initial moment, in 1948, coincided with the country’s beginnings in the thermoelectric and mechanical business and in shipbuilding, driven by Italy’s Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) and major the way in the country’s post-war reconstruction.

The launch of the transatlantic liner REX. Ansaldo Shipyards, Genoa, 1931

Then, in between the sixties and the eighties, came a concentrate on the aerospace business and the emerging electronics business on the a single hand, and on the other, on the mass market place for automobiles following the separation of the shipbuilding business. The late nineties and the early years of the new millennium saw the consolidation of the Aerospace, Defence and Safety industries in Italy, marked following the year 2005 by international expansion, in the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland. Considering the fact that the finish of 2013, this has been followed by rationalisation of assets and reorganisation into One particular Enterprise to meet the specifications of competitiveness and investment capacity – important variables for concentrating on revolutionary lines of business enterprise and technological cycles.