Private company

Breda

Logo: Società italiana Ernesto Breda per costruzioni meccaniche, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

Locomotive, machinery, aircraft, and armaments manufacturer

Società Italiana Ernesto Breda (lit. 'Ernesto Breda Italian Society'), more usually referred to simply as Breda, was an Italian mechanical manufacturing company founded by Ernesto Breda in Milan in 1886.² It ceased to exist in 1994.¹ Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1886Founded¹

Industryautomotive industry, weapons industry¹
HeadquartersMilan¹
Founded inMilan¹
Websitewww.fondazioneisec.it/breda/index.htm
Legal formjoint-stock company¹

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Corporate structure

Breda sits at the top of its group. 3 entities, 1 country on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Breda Milan
- Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie Subsidiary · Pistoia, Italy
- Meridionali Subsidiary · Napoli

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

What it owns

What Breda reports owning in its annual reports to the SEC: buildings, land and equipment, real estate and locations, investments, intangible assets and inventory, at the end of its latest fiscal year and a year before.

Stakes and holdings (Wikidata)

Meridionali

Things Wikidata records the company as owning, with the share when stated.¹

The story

Founded by Ernesto Breda in 1886, in Milan.¹

The firm was founded by Ernesto Breda in Milan in 1886. It originally manufactured locomotives and other railway machinery, but later branched out into armaments and aircraft. Occasionally, not continuously, the company also built trolleybuses. In 1935, it acquired the railway division of Officine Ferroviarie Meridionali and, soon afterwards, the aircraft division of the same company.

Breda-designed machine guns such as the Breda Model 30 and Breda Model 37 were standard issue weapons for the Royal Italian Army during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the Italian Invasion of Albania and World War 2. At the peak of its wartime production, the company had 26,000 employees. By 1954, its workforce had been reduced to around 8,000.

In 1962, Breda was nationalised as part of EFIM, but was liquidated in the 1990s. The train and tram manufacturing division fused with Ansaldo to form AnsaldoBreda, the armaments division became an independent entity as Breda Meccanica Bresciana, as did the research division as Istituto Scientifico Breda.

From Wikipedia’s article on Società Italiana Ernesto Breda, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Leadership

Who has led Breda, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

FounderErnesto Breda¹

Products and brands

Locomotives

South African Class 15CA 4-8-2

SEK class Μα

E.330

D.341

Read the full text

D.345

D.443

E.424

E.428

E.636

HŽ series 1061

DMU and EMU

ETR 200

ETR 240

ETR 300

FNM Class E.750

Metro

Washington Metro 2000-Series, 3000-Series, 4000-series

Breda A650

Tram and light rail

ATM Class 1500

ATM Class 4600 and 4700

LRVs for RTA Rapid Transit (Cleveland)

MBTA Green Line Type 8 (production continued after merger)

LRV2 and LRV3 for Muni Metro (San Francisco)

Trolleybuses

The production of trolleybuses was a small part of Breda's output, carried out through its subsidiary Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie (it), and was not under way continuously. Between 1936 and 1940, the company built a total of 28 trolleybuses, most for the Rome system but including six for Genoa. At various times between 1938 and 1956, more trolleybuses were built, but totalling only 16. Production resumed in 1988. Almost all of Breda's customers for trolleybuses were Italian trolleybus systems, but a notable exception was an order of 236 dual-mode buses that Breda built for the Seattle system between 1988 and 1991.