The October sun rises on the extensive land of 42 hectares of the German rWs ammunition manufacturer, on the outskirts of Nuremberg. Far from the nineteenth -century red brick buildings that house production facilities, employees equipped with protective glasses and ear plugs test explosives from 7 in the morning.
After an especially strong explosion, a worker approaches to collect a piece of metal that the chemical reaction has twisted to acquire a concave shape. “We call this our ashtray production,” says Stefan Rumpler, youth Olympic removal that now works on the production of ammunition for compressed air rifles for RWS, a company that produces more than 3,000 million components a year, including bullets, cartridges and primers (which light the propellant in a cartridge to boost the bullet outside the gun).
RWS, one of the main small -caliber ammunition manufacturers in the world, is now part of Beretta Holding, the company behind Beretta, the oldest armory in the world, based in Italy. The firm acquired RWS as part of the purchase of Ammotec, the largest European manufacturer of ammunition and pyrotechnics, for a sum not revealed in 2022.
“This is our greatest acquisition to date,” says Pietro Gusalli Beretta, executive director of Beretta Holding, 63 years old and descendant of the 15th generation of the founders. Since he joined the family business four decades ago and assumed the position in 1995, Pietro has contributed to the transformation of the 499 -year -old family business, acquiring companies that manufacture from rifles to luxury clothes.
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The agreement with Ammotec, for example, added 600 million dollars to the annual sales of Beretta, which allowed him to overcome Sig Sauer and Smith & Wesson, and incorporated several NATO armies to his client portfolio. Beretta is now the world’s largest firearms company, with 1700 million dollars in revenue in 2024.
Speaking from the headquarters of the company in Luxembourg, Pietro describes how that purchase helped the company, known for a long time for its shotguns and guns, as the historic Beretta 92 gun used by John McClane (Bruce Willis) in Hard to kill y Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) en Lethal weapon to go beyond its traditional approach and win new clients in the defense sector.
“The three legs of our business are hunters, soldiers and police. They need weapons, clothing and optics,” he says, referring to telescopic and red -pointed sights designed to improve the aim. “The last thing we lacked was ammunition. With this last agreement, we finally closed the circle.”
Before the acquisition, sales to civilians represented 86% of the company’s revenues, which made it dependent on the whims of hunters and weapons enthusiasts, especially in the US, the largest firearms market in the world, which represents 37% of Beretta’s sales. When COVID-19 triggered weapons sales to US civilians, Beretta reaped the fruits, with a 62% increase in their income in North America between 2019 and 2021.
But Pietro knew that would not last forever. In addition, he still had to recover land lost by a contract of 580 million dollars with the US army for guns, which he lost to his rival, Sig Sauer, based in New Hampshire, in 2017.
“Civil market growth in the US compensated the loss of the contract with the Army, but in the meantime we also forge closer links with other police armies and forces,” he adds. “We rebound the force.”
Currently, sales and application sales represent 34% of Beretta Holding’s revenues, compared to only 14% of four years ago. It is also a good time to bet on the military sector: the expense in defense of European countries reached a record of 350 billion dollars in 2024, while leaders sought to rearm after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This figure is expected to increase even more, after the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced in early March a plan to provide EU countries with 160 billion dollars in loans to invest in their armed forces, just after President Trump announced that the United States would suspend military aid to Ukraine.
“It’s not just about Europe. Governments around the world are now spending more in defense,” says Pietro, pointing out the increase in sales to the armies of the Middle East. “Naturally, we have benefited from it.”
“You can sell the firearm, loyalty to the brand and sell ammunition to perpetuity,” says Mark Smith, an investment bank analyst Lake Street Capital Partners, about the advantages of expanding to the ammunition sector. “If government contracts are achieved for (firearms), doors are probably opened to capture customers also in the ammunition sector. Without a doubt, it helps eliminate fluctuations and business cycles.”
After falling in 2023, the EBITDA (benefit before interest, taxes, debt and amortization) of Beretta Holding rebounded 2%, up to 245 million dollars in 2024, more than triple than that of its rivals quoted in the stock market, Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson. Forbes estimates that Beretta Holding, 100% owned by Pietro, her father Ugo, 87, and his brother Franco, 61, now has a value of 2.2 billion dollars. If we add to this the precious vineyards, houses and investments of the family, the trio shares a fortune estimated at 2.7 billion dollars.
It has definitely not a rapid enrichment situation. Beretta dates back to 1526, when Bartolomeo Beretta (who died in 1565), manufacturer of rifle cannons in the small city of Gardone, in northern Italy, sold 185 arcabuz cannons – a long laptop Precursor of the modern rifle – to the Republic of Venice. Generations of Bartolomeo heirs have continued family tradition, still living in Gardone and manufacturing weapons. The family business has supplied firearms, including the world’s first semi -automatic guns and one of the first machine guns, for all European wars since 1650.
Under the direction of UGO, the company moved to the United States in 1978 and, by 1985, had achieved a coveted contract to supply guns to the US army. It was then that Pietro joined the company, helping his father to buy the participation of the then minority shareholder of Beretta, the French armory Fn Herstal (now based in Belgium).
“We had funds and decided that if we wanted to make more acquisitions, we had to organize more,” he recalls.
The family founded Beretta Holding in Luxembourg in 1995, simplifying the complex structure of the company, built over centuries, and consolidating the property under a single holding. It was then that its expansion began seriously. Beretta acquired the Finnish manufacturer of Rifles Sako in 2000, his first foray beyond the sector of shotguns and guns, and added the companies of Optics Burris and Steiner in 2002 and 2008, respectively, that manufacture telescopic views, red and binocular points. After acquiring the British manufacturer of luxury clothing and artisanal weapons Holland & Holland in 2021 and Ammotec a year later, Beretta Holding now has 19 brands that operate in 23 countries on the five continents. Thanks to this impulse, none of the Beretta subsidiar represents more than 25 % of the group’s income.
“We will continue to see greater consolidation in the sector as people agglutinate around known entities,” says Smith, of Lake Street, highlighting the loyalty that Beretta and their subsidiaries have generated among their life of a lifetime, even after their acquisition. “With Beretta, you know what awaits you.”
Some Beretta competitors try to reach it. While Gock, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. They still do not manufacture their own ammunition, Colt CZ, based in Prague, which the US company that manufactures the Colt guns in 2021, acquired the manufacturer of Mersion Sellier & Bellot last May for 700 million dollars.
For Pietro, the control and deep participation of the family (his father, who renounced the executive positions in 2015, is part of the Board of Directors, while his brother Franco directs Fabbrica d’Ami Pietro Beretta, the original family business and now a subsidiary of Beretta where Franco’s son, Carlo) is also what distinguishes Beretta from his competition.
“We have something that others do not have, and they will never have: a single owner family,” he says, pointing out how other legendary firearms of firearms sold their companies or took them out. “When we have to deal with foreign governments, we are my brother or I who meet with the president. That does not happen with other companies. We have a long -term vision that is not speculative.”
To stay ahead of their rivals, the Beretta are also reinviring dividends and reserving a part of the income to develop new products and produce weapons and ammunition more efficiently.
Anywhere else is this more evident than in the factory of 22,800 square meters of Benelli Armi, a Beretta subsidiary that manufactures semi -automatic shotguns, in the center of Italy. Thanks to the investments made in 2019, autonomous vehicles deliver components to workers in the assembly lines, while roof screens record their minute by minute progress, updated in real time. Robotics test each component for quality control, using automatic learning to improve their performance detecting any defect in the early stages of production.
The same eagerness for efficiency exists in RWS, which allocates 8% of its annual income to the modernization of machinery to increase ammunition production. «Beretta are not interested in opportunistic strategies. They have an perspective of 25 to 50, ”explains Matthias Vogel, vice president of RWS.
While Beretta approaches her 500th anniversary in 2026, Pietro is pragmatic. When asked about his expectations for the next half -millennium of Beretta, he mocks. “How am I going to know what the next 500 years will be? I won’t be, so I don’t care,” he says. “The next generations will do what seems better. I prefer to think about the next five years.”
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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