Indústrias Romi S.A

What it is

Romi was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, in the state of São Paulo. The founder was Américo Emílio Romi — the company started as a car-repair workshop and grew into the dominant Brazilian maker of capital equipment: the machines other factories use to make things.

Romi runs three business units: ROMI Machines, covering machine tools and plastic-processing equipment; Burkhardt+Weber Machines, a German subsidiary making large horizontal machining centres; and Castings and Machined Parts, capable of producing roughly 50,000 tonnes a year of iron castings. Brazil accounts for 65% of consolidated revenue, with the rest coming from exports and foreign subsidiaries.

Romi has subsidiaries in Germany, China, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Its shares trade on B3’s Novo Mercado segment — Brazil’s highest-governance listing tier — under the ticker ROMI3.

Who owns it

Insiders hold 46.5% of the shares and institutional investors a further 2.3%, leaving a free float of roughly 51% (our calculations from EODHD data). The board chair is Américo Emílio Romi Neto, a grandson of the founder, who has led the board since 2003.

Paulo Romi, a mechanical engineer who has been with the company since 1988, also sits on the board.

Mônica Romi Zanatta, who holds an MBA from Getúlio Vargas Foundation and executive certifications from Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago, is also a board member. Three generations of the founding family are therefore present in governance, giving the controlling bloc deep roots and long time-horizons.

Who runs it

Luiz Cassiano Rando Rosolen has been Chief Executive Officer since March 2015. He holds degrees in business administration and accounting, a postgraduate degree in finance from Getúlio Vargas Foundation, and completed Harvard Business School’s General Management Programme in 2013; he also holds a US CPA certificate.

Fernando Marcos Cassoni serves as Vice CEO and Chief Operations Officer. The governance page does not name a separate CFO; financial oversight appears consolidated under the CEO, who previously served in that role himself.

The money, in plain words

Romi brought in R$1.33bn (US$258 mn) ($258m) in FY2025 — up 8.7% from R$1.22bn (US$237 mn) in FY2024 (our calculation) — but the company kept only about 6 cents of profit from every real of sales, a net profit margin of 6.1%, down sharply from 9.3% in FY2024 (our calculation). That compression came mainly from the Castings unit, where agricultural-sector customers pulled back.

For every real shareholders have put in, the company earned about 6 back last year — a return on equity of 6.4%, modest for an industrial business and well below its own 2023 peak of around 14% (our calculation). The balance sheet carries R$1.02bn (US$198 mn) ($198m) of debt against only R$103m (US$20 mn) ($20m) of cash, a net debt position of R$918m (US$178 mn) ($178m) (our calculation), largely financing its machine-rental programme and German subsidiary.

The shares trade at just 7.4 times earnings — cheap by any international industrial benchmark — and the dividend yield of 8.7% is high enough that income investors are effectively being paid to wait. In December 2025, the board approved a further payment to shareholders of R$16.8m (US$3 mn) gross, equivalent to R$0.18 (US$0.03)per share.

What it is doing now

In the first quarter of 2025, order entry almost doubled compared to Q1 2024, reaching R$134m (US$26 mn), lifting the order backlog to R$430m (US$83 mn). Machine-rental revenue grew 27.9% in that quarter, representing roughly 25% of the Romi Machinery unit’s revenue.

Romi is deliberately shifting part of its business from one-off equipment sales to recurring rental income — a steadier cash stream that cushions the volatility of Brazil’s investment cycle.

The Burkhardt+Weber unit’s revenue rose 46.6% in 2025 versus 2024, driven by large orders from Europe, Asia and North America. Its order backlog in Q4 2025 was R$494.6m (US$96 mn), up 39% year-on-year.

The Castings unit, by contrast, is still recovering as Brazil’s farm-equipment sector digests excess inventory.

What to watch

• Margin recovery. Net margin fell from 13.4% in FY2023 to 9.3% in FY2024 to 6.1% in FY2025 (our calculations). Whether Castings stabilises and the mix of higher-margin machine-tool and B+W orders grows will determine whether that slide reverses.
• Debt load. Net debt of R$918m (US$178 mn) ($178m) against equity of R$1.25bn (US$243 mn) ($243m) is not alarming but leaves little room if Brazilian interest rates stay elevated.
• The rental model. Machine-as-a-service — renting CNC equipment instead of selling it — ties up capital upfront but builds recurring revenue. Its scale and profitability are not yet fully disclosed.
• B+W backlog conversion. R$494.6m (US$96 mn) of signed orders at the German unit is real only when delivered and billed; execution risk is the number to track each quarter.
• Family succession. Three generations of Romis govern the company; the long-term ownership structure is a strength, but any change in the family’s alignment would matter to minority shareholders.

This is news, not investment advice.