The company was backed by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the powerful finance minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, who aimed to reduce its dependence on imported trains and rolling stock.

During the First World War, Ansaldo became a large supplier of weapons to the Italian army; facing insurmountable difficulties with post-war reconversion to civilian industry, the company was eventually nationalised in 1921.

In a massive restructuring effort, in 2001 the Italian state merged all the rolling stock activities of the then loss-making Ansaldo and Breda in a new company, AnsaldoBreda,[9] that in turn became part of the Finmeccanica state-owned group.

Soon after the trains went into service on the high-speed line between the Netherlands and Belgium, the V250 suffered a number of severe technical problems.

The City of Gothenburg therefore withheld a large part of the payment for a delivered tram until fully operational.

[30] The maintenance issues experienced by MBTA AnsaldoBreda Type 8 Vehicles delayed the retirement of the Boeing LRVs by several years.

[31] In October 2016, the Boston Globe reported that the MBTA Green Line had the most derailments in the nation due to the Type 8.

[32] In spite of its overall terminal crisis, AnsaldoBreda managed to successfully participate in the Italian high-speed trains program until the very end of its existence.

[37] Under the agreements signed on 24 February 2015, following a dividend distribution announced on 6 March, the purchase price for Finmeccanica's stake in Ansaldo STS has been set at €9.50 per share, amounting to a total of €761m.

The total net consideration to be paid for AnsaldoBreda as a going concern, including property assets, amounts to around €30m.