How it started
Foundation
Società Finanziaria Meccanica, "Finmeccanica", was established in 1948 as the mechanical engineering subholding of the state-owned Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI). Finmeccanica has held for years some historic Italian enterprises, as Alfa Romeo (automobiles), Aeritalia (aerospace) and Ansaldo (engineering).
From the 1960s to the 1980s Italy's defence and aerospace industry was split into state-holding entities: EFIM owned the helicopters manufacturer Agusta, the defence company Oto Melara and the electronic enterprise Officine Galileo. STET (another IRI subsidiary) held Selenia, Elsag and SGS Thomson, all electronic enterprises with specialisations in security and defence. In 1989, an internal IRI reorganisation process brought STET electronic enterprises to Finmeccanica, and the Aeritalia-Selenia merger constituted its aerospace subsidiary Alenia.
1990s
In 1992, EFIM was wound up because of its troubled financial situation; and Agusta, Oto Melara, Officine Galileo and Breda passed to Finmeccanica, which became one of the main Italian industrial groups. Finmeccanica, which was previously fully state owned by IRI, became partly privatised in 1993, when it was listed on the Milan Borsa Italiana stock exchange.
In 1992, Finmeccanica's Agusta became a 32% partner in NHIndustries, the prime contractor for the NH90 helicopter, along with Eurocopter (62.5%) and Fokker (5.5%).
From Wikipedia’s article on Leonardo, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2