Franco Tosi Meccanica

File:Centrale termoelettrica Regina Margherita Museo scienza e tecnologia Milano.jpg of Milan.]]

Franco Tosi grew out of an engineering business called, originally, Cantoni Krumm & C., which Tosi himself joined as Technical Director in 1876. The firm had originated a couple of years earlier (1874) as a producer, primarily, of textile machinery, but under Tosi's leadership it rapidly reinvented itself as a producer of steam engines, which Tosi had developed for use as the power source for industrial looms. These formed the basis for the company's rapid growth in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Tosi soon became a shareholder, and in 1881 the company also took his name. In 1894 he became the sole shareholder.Tosi, Franco, in: [http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Matschossm/matschossm_index.html Matschoss, Conrad: Männer der Technik. Ein biographisches Handbuch, hrsg. im Auftrage des Vereines Deutscher Ingenieure. Berlin: Springer, 1925, XI, 306 S., auf digitalis.uni-koeln.de][http://www.albert-gieseler.de/dampf_de/firmen0/firmadet1150.shtml Franco Tosi auf albert-gieseler.de]

Some time later in 1907, the business diversified into the production of diesel engines, which was then a rapidly growing market sector. For a time Ettore Maserati, one of the five brothers who later founded Maserati, worked as a designer of diesel engines for "Franco Tosi", which was also cooperating with the motorbike producer, Emilio Bozzi.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

In 1914, shortly before the start of the First World War, Tosi established as a subsidiary business a shipyard at Taranto in the south of the country for the production of submarines and ships, destined primarily for the Regia Marina and the Italian Navy. During the 1920s a submarine{{which|date=January 2017}} from this shipyard, the Cantieri navali Tosi di Taranto, achieved a world-wide depth record descending to 75 meters below sea level.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

In 1919 the United Engineering Company of San Francisco obtained the rights to manufacture 4-, 6- and 8-cylinder variants of Franco Tosi four-cycle marine diesel engines.{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/pacificmarinerev1619paci/page/n903/mode/1up|title=The United Engineering Company of San Francisco|magazine=Pacific Marine Review|date=August 1919|page=188}}

In the 1930s the football team from the Tosi shipyard in Taranto participated in the first division of the Italian football league.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

After the Second World War, "Franco Tosi" collaborated with two large US corporation called General Electric and Combustion Engineering producing under licence large steam turbines and boilers of American design. Turbine components were also produced. The 1970s saw the number of employees peaking at more than 6,000.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Italia, 1958) - BEIC 6365900.jpg

File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Legnano, 1958) - BEIC 6361470.jpg

File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Legnano, 1958) - BEIC 6361473.jpg

File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Legnano, 1958) - BEIC 6361557.jpg

The early 1990s was a time of world-wide crisis for producers of power generation equipment, and "Franco Tosi" found itself taken over by Ansaldo, the resulting combine being taken over in 1993 by Finmeccanica and integrated into that company's energy division under the name AnsaldoEnergia. However, this resulted in a concentration of control in the Italian energy sector which attracted the attention of the Competition Authority. In response to pressure from the regulator the integration of Finmeccanica was reversed, and ownership of "Franco Tosi" transferred, in 2000, to the Cast Group. At was at this point that the business acquired its current name, "Franco Tosi Meccanica S.p.A.".{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

On 25 July 2013 the bankruptcy court in Milan declared the company insolvent.{{cite web|url=http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/economia/1284998/Tosi--dichiarato-stato-insolvenza-per-l-azienda-di-Legnano.html|title=Tosi: dichiarato stato insolvenza per l'azienda di Legnano|date=25 July 2013|accessdate=27 July 2013|publisher=Libero|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193321/http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/economia/1284998/Tosi--dichiarato-stato-insolvenza-per-l-azienda-di-Legnano.html|archive-date=29 October 2013|url-status=dead}}

On 9 June 2015 Presezzi Group acquired the business of Franco Tosi Meccanica which includes among other:{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

• plant, machinery and equipment:
• the brand "Franco Tosi", all patents and other rights of industrial and intellectual property;
• the know-how and all technical documentation, including manufacturing and construction drawings
• all work in progress and order backlog.

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