Last week, Pirelli SpA chairman and CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera and the firm’s top management were received by the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, to mark the 140th anniversary of the company’s foundation in 1872.

"It was a great honor for me and for all of us to be received by President Napolitano on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth of Pirelli," said Tronchetti Provera. "It is an anniversary that we are celebrating with the 36,000 people, throughout the world, who share in the pride of belonging to a group that has taken the excellence of Italian industry everywhere in the world.

“Over these 140 (years) we have grown greatly,” the Pirelli chairman and CEO continued. “Since 1872 we have put passion and creativity into our work to reach new horizons, realizing ideas and the most advanced technologies and claiming as our own the modernity displayed by Giovanni Battista Pirelli when he founded the company at the age of only 24 and of his grandson, Leopoldo, who consolidated its commitment to innovation and research.

“Always looking to the future means carrying 140 years of history without feeling its weight, but taking advantage of all that experience,” he said. “And it is the only way we know of interpreting our role and our responsibility as an enterprise among the most deeply rooted in the country’s industrial fabric.”
 
To commemorate the Italian President’s recognition of Pirelli’s 140 years in the business, the company has summarized the most significant moments in its long history; a story that began on Jan. 28 1872, with the founding of elastic rubber producer ‘G.B. Pirelli & C.’ in Milan. The firm was the first of its kind in Italy.
 
In 1879, G.B. Pirelli & C. began production of cables and conductors for the transmission of electrical energy and communication, soon becoming world leader in the laying of underwater telegraphic networks.
 
In 1890 the company expanded and, in addition to factories at Porta Nuova and Ponte Seveso, acquired land in Milan for a new factory to make tires for velocipedes, a product that would in time replace solid rubber rings.
 
In 1902 the group opened a factory in Spain near Barcelona, its first abroad, and thus began a period of international expansion. Factories in Southampton, England (1913), Buenos Aires, Argentina (1917), Manresa, Spain (1924) and Burton on Trent, England (1928) followed.
 
In 1907, driving his “Itala,” Prince Scipione Borghese, winner of the Peking-Paris rally, secured Pirelli’s first international sporting victory. It is the first of many sporting triumphs on two and four wheels, consolidated over the years by personalities of the calibre of Nuvolari, Ascari and Fangio.
 
In 1908, the “long P” logo was created. The idea came to light in New York when the group needed to distinguish its products in the U.S. from those of its competitors. Piero and Alberto Pirelli, the sons of Giovanni Battista Pirelli, who ran the company together with their father from 1904, used a long P also in their signatures, and that is where the idea for the logo came from.

Today the Pirelli brand is one of the best known in the world and its value is estimated at 2.27 billion euros. In 1922, Pirelli & C. was listed on the Milan stock exchange and in 1929 it became the first Italian company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1929, the company also built its first factory in Brazil, a country of fundamental importance for the group, and where today it has five production facilities.
 
In 1924, Pirelli obtained the copyright for an innovative technology in the cables field. From that moment, nearly all the high-tension power lines of the world used Pirelli technology.
 
Company founder Giovanni Battista Pirelli passed away in 1932. Further setbacks awaited Pirelli during the Second World War, when its factories in Milan were heavily damaged. In 1946 – after being administered for a year by the Allied Forces government – Giovanni’s sons, Piero and Alberto Pirelli, returned to run the company.
 
In 1948, the “Rivista Pirelli” magazine was created. It was one of the most important examples of a company publication aimed at the general public, with the goal of combining technical and humanist culture. In almost 30 years’ publication, the magazine hosted many great names of literature, graphic design and art. It is during this period that the distinctive traits of Pirelli’s communication took form, with important contributions from artists and designers such as Mulas, Mendini and Guttuso.
 
In 1953 the Cinturato, the tire that marked the debut of Pirelli’s radial technology, was introduced.  

On Aug. 7, 1956, Piero Pirelli died and Alberto took over as chairman. Four years later the group’s new Milan headquarters were inaugurated. The skyscraper designed by Gio Ponti stands opposite Milan’s central station.

In 1964, the first Pirelli calendar was produced, with images by Robert Freeman, later the photographer of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album. The calendar proved to be an immediate success and quickly achieved cult object status. The 2013 calendar – photographed by Steve McCurry – will be the 40th edition.
 
In 1965, Alberto Pirelli, age 83, was appointed the group’s honorary president and handed the executive presidency to his son, Leopoldo, who remained at the company’s helm for over 25 years.
 
In the 1970s Pirelli and Dunlop integrated their respective industrial activities and took cross shareholdings. During this period, Pirelli reports that a “technological leap” took place, the results of which were seen in the Cinturato P7, P6 and P8. Pirelli’s expansion continued with the acquisition, in 1986, of the German motorcycle tire specialist Metzeler.
 
In 1992, Marco Tronchetti Provera, who had been with the group since 1986, commenced in the role of CEO. After group restructuring in the wake of the failed acquisition of Continental AG, Tronchetti Provera launched and consolidated a process of internationalization, developing new technologies and expanding into emerging markets like the Far East and Africa.
 
In 2000, Pirelli sold its terrestrial optics systems to Cisco and its optics components activities to Corning for about 5 billion euros. In 2001, through the investment of part of that liquidity, Pirelli became – through Olimpia – the shareholder of reference of Telecom Italia, an arrangement the company ended in 2007.
 
In 2005, Pirelli sold its Cables and Energy and Telecommunications Systems activities to Goldman Sachs and the resulting new company was named Prysmian. That same year, Pirelli inaugurated its first tire production facility in China, in Shandong province, which developed into the group’s Chinese production hub.
 
In 2006, Pirelli opened its first tire production plant in Slatina, Romania, which was expanded in 2011. In 2008, Pirelli began construction work on its Settimo Torinese facility: Born of the integration of two existing factories, it is today the group’s most technologically advanced production site.
 
In 2010, Pirelli completed its transformation into a “pure tire company” through the disposal of Pirelli Broadband Solutions and the separation of the Pirelli Re real estate activities from the group. That same year, the Fondazione Pirelli was inaugurated to safeguard and enhance the value of the company’s heritage, as well as promote entrepreneurial culture as part of the Italy’s broader cultural wealth.
 
In June 2010, after a 19-year absence, Pirelli returned to Formula One after winning the contract to be exclusive tire supplier for the 2011 to 2013 seasons. Pirelli is also the exclusive supplier for the Superbike world championship and a number of single marque championships, including the Ferrari Challenge, Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trophy and Maserati Trophy.
 
In 2011, Pirelli expanded production in Russia through a joint venture with Russian Technologies and strengthened production in Argentina by enlarging its plant at Merlo. In the same year, Pirelli inaugurated “Pirelli Corso Venezia,” its flagship Pirelli P Zero store, an industrial design project that supports Pirelli’s core business.
 
Earlier this year, Pirelli signed an agreement with Astra OtoParts to build a motorcycle tire factory in Indonesia, which will produce 7 million tires annually by 2016. At the end of May, Pirelli inaugurated its first plant in Silao, Mexico, for the production of premium tires destined for the entire NAFTA area.
 
Pirelli is currently the fifth largest tiremaker in the world in terms of sales; last year the company produced 66 million tires and generated sales totalling 5.65 billion euros. The company is commercially present in more than 160 countries and operates 22 production facilities in 13 lands – Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Romania, China, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, the U.S. and the U.K. Pirelli employs about 36,000 people around the world.

Since 2009, Pirelli has invested a total of some 1.5 billion euros in various projects, including more than 150 million euros in its Settimo Torinese facility, the group’s most technologically advanced centre. The tiremaker anticipates that, as of 2015, 60% of Pirelli production will take place in factories that are less then 10 years old. (Tyres & Accessories)