High-potential SMEs

Egm X-rayed: no tariffs problem for Esautomotion

The mechatronics company only exports to China, Turkey and the Iberian Peninsula. The USA accounts for just 162,000 euros

by Valeria Novellini

2 September 2025

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La Turchia (nella foto il ponte sul Bosforo) è una delle tre aree dove esporta Esautomotion (Photo by Ozan KOSE / AFP)

5' min read

Key points

Numbers
The group has liquidity and purchased a new property
Developed AI-based and environmentally certified products

5' min read

While everyone (rightly) worries about the impact of the new US tariffs on major domestic and European industries, there are also export-oriented companies for which the main foreign outlet market is not the US. And no, it is not the fashion-luxury sector. Esautomotion, a mechatronics company, generated 48.77% of its revenue abroad in 2024, but the most significant shares were in China (-9.3% to 5.5 million, 41.87% of foreign revenue), Turkey (-60% to 2.3 million, 17.1% of foreign revenue) and the Iberian Peninsula (+3.9% to 2.1 million, 15.7% of foreign revenue). The US weighed in at only 162,000 euros.

The numbers

And so Esautomotion has virtually nothing to fear from the new tariffs. Unfortunately, however, it is of course subject to the volatility of the Turkish market and the development of the Chinese market, which, in the field of mechatronics, has considerably raised the quality of its domestic products, making it competitive with the rest of the world. As a result, in 2024 Esautomotion saw turnover drop by 23.8% to EUR 27.2 million and margins fall more than proportionally (ebitda -52.7% to about EUR 4 million, ebit -73.6% to EUR 1.6 million and net profit -76.9% to EUR 868,000).

But 2025 has started positively. In the first half of the year, the group's revenues rose by 6.4% to 15 million, and this is by no means a low figure, since as at 31/3/2025 a drop of 7.9% to 7.2 million had still been shown; on the other hand, the second quarter saw an increase of 23.7% to 7.8 million. This trend is due to the acquisition of new customers in 2024, which started to contribute to the group's results in 2025 (due to the nature of the business, the activation of orders from new customers takes about a year on average), while demand from 'historical' customers is weaker.

The group has liquidity and has purchased a new property

Esautomotion, as at 30/6/2025, had net cash and cash equivalents of 3.1 million, down from 4.7 million at the end of 2025 but exclusively due to the 1.6 million purchase of a 2.500 sqm in Villasanta (Monza Brianza), destined to replace and upgrade the current warehouse rented by the subsidiary Sangalli Servomotori Srl as from September 2025, resulting in greater production efficiency (it will be possible to return outsourced production to external suppliers, and in addition, the new plant will become the shipping point to customers in Lombardy, Piedmont and Triveneto, thus optimising logistics). The company prudently did not distribute dividends for the 2024 financial year, and the parent company's entire profit of €1.2 million (higher than the consolidated profit, since Sangalli Servomotori showed a net loss of €150,000) was allocated to reserves.

In 2024, investments of EUR 1.4 million (5.2% of revenues) were made in research and development, relating to the integration of different mechatronic technologies, performance enhancement, the development and integration of new devices, sensors and components, the development of new kinematics, the improvement of energy efficiency and 'green transition' (solar panels will be installed on the new Sangalli Servomotori plant to reduce energy consumption) and new complementary and synergic business lines on motors and drives.

The company, in order to outline the trends in the relevant sector, indicates as a 'proxy' the performance of the world leader in the CNC sector,the Japanese group Fanuc Corporation, with which it is obviously not comparable (Fanuc has 50 times the turnover of Esautomotion), but which in fact drives the market. And Fanuc, for the financial year ending 31/3/2026, estimates revenues of 870 billion yen, an ebit of 196.3 billion and a net profit of 143 billion. In the financial year ending 31/3/2025, these figures amounted to 797.1, 158.8 and 147.6 billion respectively. Therefore, the Japanese giant's indications are positive overall (except for a slight decrease in net profit), and have already been worked out including a 15% impact of US tariffs as of 1/8/2025 (remember that Fanuc is obviously much more exposed to the US market than Esautomotion is).

Developed AI-based and environmentally certified products

As far as Esautomotion's intermediate profit margins in 2025 are concerned, they are naturally linked to the profitability generated by the 'new' customers. The company will continue to invest significantly in Research and Development and, moreover, at the Lamiera 2025 event (held in Milan from 6 to 9 May), the new ViS-890W CNC equipped with a 32" vertical mega-screen, which makes it easier for machine programmers to use, and the Esa 4to5 suite, which detects the energy consumption of a plant in real time, allowing immediate intervention in the event of inefficiency or waste. These products are designed to be used in the context of Industry 5.0 (remember that the new Transition 5.0 Tax Credit is now fully active, which allows companies to obtain an incentive of up to 45% for innovation projects that lead to a reduction in energy consumption).

In the second half of 2025, Esautomotion will complete the development of the ViS-900 series based on artificial intelligence, and emphasised that all its products are Dsnh certified (an acronym for Do No Significant Harm), a principle introduced by the European Union that requires that any intervention, project or reform financed with European funds must not cause significant damage to the environment.

Already since 2024 Esautomotion has initiated actions to contain working capital, which it intends to continue this year, further improving the financial position (obviously not considering the aforementioned investment for the new Sangalli Servomotori plant). All things considered, it is possible that the 2025 results will be better than those of 2024, although the 'double digit' growth rates of the past in China do not appear on the horizon for the time being. The company therefore intends to strengthen its presence in India, a market of enormous size and with expected growth rates much higher than in China.

Esautomotion certainly does not have the size of the 'big' Fanuc, Siemens, Beckhoff and Delem, but it has decided to focus on specific market niches with high barriers to entry and has adopted a counter-cyclical strategy of expanding its range to include internally produced electric motors and adopting cutting-edge technology, all through the acquisition of Sangalli Servomotori in 2023. It does not rule out further growth through external lines.

As is the case for several companies in the Euronext Growth Milan, Esautomotion's trading level is very low, although the free float is not among the lowest (around 21.5% of the share capital). And this undoubtedly represents a strong limitation to the potential appreciation of the stock.