Brazil’s Oldest Machine Maker Romi Sees Orders Stir After a Brutal Slide

Second-quarter net profit fell 15% year-on-year to R$13.9 million but surged nearly sixfold from the first quarter, as shares traded near their 52-week low at 7.5 times earnings.

3 Key Points

—Indústrias Romi (ROMI3), Latin America's largest machine-tool maker and the company that traditionally opens Brazil's earnings season, reported a second-quarter net profit of R$13.9 million ($2.7M) on July 14 — down 15% from a year earlier, but nearly six times the depressed first quarter, powered by recovering machine sales.

—The five-year slide frames the quarter: annual profit has fallen every year from R$215 million ($42M) in 2022 to R$85 million ($17M) in 2025, as double-digit interest rates strangled the capital-goods orders Romi lives on — no Brazilian industrial company is a purer victim of the Selic.

—Which is also the bull case: at R$6.10, within 3% of its 52-week low, the stock trades at 7.5x earnings and 0.45x book with net debt of just R$197 million ($39M) against R$1.2 billion ($235M) of equity — a balance-sheet fortress priced for permanent recession, one rate-cutting cycle away from an order-book revival.

Romi Results: What Happened

01What Happened

Indústrias Romi S.A. (B3: ROMI3) has made the machines that make Brazilian industry since 1930: metal-cutting lathes and machining centers, plastic injection-molding machines, and rough and machined castings, from its base in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, São Paulo state. The founding family's holding keeps roughly 46% of the register, and by calendar tradition the company files first each quarter — making its numbers Brazil's earnings-season starting gun.

One-stop reference

Company Intelligence

Every listed company in Latin America — financials, ownership and structure for 1,450+ companies across 26 exchanges, in one place.

Browse the directory →

The second-quarter print, published July 14 and flagged by ADVFN among the session's highlights, showed net profit of R$13.9 million ($2.7M): 15% below the same quarter of 2025, but a 489% jump on the first quarter's near-breakeven result, driven by stronger machine sales. In a year when Brazilian industry has mostly deferred investment, sequential recovery is the headline Romi needed.

Company Intelligence · Market Data

Ticker / listingROMI3 · B3

Share price (Jul 17)R$6.10

Market capR$568 mn ($111M)

52-week rangeR$5.95 – R$8.83

Trailing P/E7.5x

Price / book0.45x

EPS (TTM)R$0.81

Family holding~46%

Beta0.19

Source: EODHD market data, July 17, 2026.

A note of caution on sell-side coverage: the nominal consensus target on file (above R$17) is stale — small caps this size lose analyst attention in downturns, and Romi's screen prices reflect neglect as much as verdict. The book value is the more honest anchor: the market pays 45 cents for each real of equity in a debt-light, 96-year-old market leader.

Company Intelligence · Company Profile

CompanyIndústrias Romi S.A.

Sector / industryIndustrials · Machine Tools & Capital Goods

Founded1930

HeadquartersSanta Bárbara d'Oeste (SP), Brazil

CEOLuiz Cassiano Rando Rosolen

CFO / IRFabio Barbanti Taiar

BusinessesMachine tools · Injection molding · Castings

ListingB3, earnings-season opener by tradition

Source: EODHD company fundamentals, July 17, 2026.

Key Drivers Behind the Romi Results

02Key Drivers

Machine tools are the economy's most honest leading indicator: nobody buys a lathe for sentiment. Romi's customers — auto-parts makers, agribusiness equipment suppliers, general manufacturing — only order when they believe in demand two years out, and with the Selic in double digits, belief has been rationed. That is the whole story of the profit slide since 2022.

The quarter's sequential surge in machine sales is therefore more interesting than its annual decline: it is consistent with industrial buyers starting to pre-position for the rate-cutting cycle Brazil's disinflation is opening. One quarter is not a trend — but this is the indicator to watch for one.

Romi Financial Detail

03Financial Detail

Metric

2T25

1T26

2T26

Trend

Net profit

R$16.4 mn ($3.2M)

R$2.4 mn ($0.5M)

R$13.9 mn ($2.7M)

−15% YoY, +489% QoQ

Five-Year Track Record

Fiscal year

Revenue

Net income

2021

R$1.4 bn ($274M)

R$204 mn ($40M)

2022

R$1.6 bn ($314M)

R$215 mn ($42M)

2023

R$1.2 bn ($235M)

R$164 mn ($32M)

2024

R$1.2 bn ($235M)

R$114 mn ($22M)

2025

R$1.3 bn ($255M)

R$85 mn ($17M)

Balance Sheet Snapshot

Company Intelligence · Balance Sheet (Jun 30, 2026)

Cash & equivalentsR$341 mn ($67M)

Net debtR$197 mn ($39M)

Shareholders' equityR$1.2 bn ($235M)

Market cap vs. equityR$568 mn vs. R$1.2 bn

Return on equity (TTM)6.4%

Source: EODHD company fundamentals, July 17, 2026.

The market values Romi at less than half its own equity while the company carries barely two months of revenue in net debt. That combination — balance-sheet strength, valuation despair — is what deep-value investors screen for; what it lacks, for now, is the earnings catalyst.

Management Signals

04Management Signals

Management's consistent line through the downturn: protect the technology investment, keep the workforce's know-how intact, and let the balance sheet absorb the cycle rather than cutting into the franchise. Filing first each quarter is itself a signal — a 96-year-old company confident enough to lead the tape in its worst cycle in a decade.

What to Watch Next

05What to Watch Next

Order intake: disclosed in the full release, the forward-looking number that matters more than profit. Selic cuts: the single catalyst; every cut re-prices industrial investment math. 3T26 in October: whether the sequential recovery compounds. The season it opened: WEG on July 22 and the capital-goods complex will confirm or contradict Romi's early signal.

Risks

06Risks

If rates stay high into 2027, the order drought continues and the profit slide enters year five. Liquidity is thin — a R$568 million market cap with 46% held by the family leaves a narrow float that exaggerates every move. Chinese machine-tool imports pressure pricing at the commodity end of the range. And small-cap neglect can persist long after fundamentals turn.

Sector Context

07Sector Context

Romi opened a season whose pattern is now visible across this series: Brazil's rate-sensitive real economy (Romi, Camil, C&A, Banco do Brasil's farm book) still bleeding, while the rate-cut trade (Movida, Ultrapar, B3) already runs. Machine tools sit at the very end of that transmission chain — the last to fall, the last to recover, and therefore the purest confirmation signal when Brazilian industry finally believes in the easing cycle. The starting gun has fired on more than the earnings calendar.

This report is part of The Rio Times' Company Intelligence coverage of B3-listed companies. It is journalism, not investment advice.

Net profit of R$13.9 million was down 15% from a year earlier but jumped nearly six times from the depressed first quarter, driven by recovering machine sales.

Romi sells machine tools and capital goods, and its customers only place orders when they believe in future demand, which has been rationed by double-digit interest rates.

The stock trades at 0.45 times its book value, meaning the market values the company at less than half its own equity, while it carries low net debt of R$197 million against R$1.2 billion of equity.