Hitachi Rail Italy

Hitachi Rail Italy S.p.A. (HRI) is a rail transport engineering company based in Italy whose main products are designing and manufacturing of railway and mass transit vehicles. Formerly AnsaldoBreda S.p.A., a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, the company was sold to Hitachi in February 2015, along with the 40% share of Ansaldo STS that Finmeccanica owned. After the deal was finalized, the current name was adapted in November 2015 to reflect the new ownership.

In 1853, the company Gio. Ansaldo & C. was registered in Genoa as a manufacturer of steam locomotives, rail rolling stock and steam engines. The company was supported by the Minister of Finance, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who aimed to reduce the State of Savoy's dependence on imported trains and rolling stock.

In 1886, Ernesto Breda founded Ing. Ernesto Breda and C., the company which became Società Italiana Ernesto Breda (SIEB) in 1899.

In 1989 both Ansaldo and Breda participated in a consortium for the design and manufacturing of the ETR500 high speed train.

AnsaldoBreda was formed in 2001 by the merger of Ansaldo Trasporti and Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie, and was part of the Finmeccanica group. It has production sites at four locations in Italy: Naples, Reggio Calabria, Palermo, and Pistoia.

The company employs about 2,400 people. Salvatore Bianconi was the Chief Executive Officer of AnsaldoBreda from 2008 to 2011, when he was succeeded by Maurizio Manfellotto.