WEG grew from three used cars in Santa Catarina to the world's top electric motor maker

In 1961 three friends — Werner Voigt, Eggon da Silva and Geraldo Werninghaus — founded Eletromotores Jaraguá in Jaraguá do Sul, Santa Catarina, with capital equivalent to three Fuscas. The company, renamed WEG after their initials and the German word for path, started making electric motors and still makes them today.

WEG exported from 1970, beginning with Argentina and Paraguay, and from the 2000s accelerated internationalization — not just shipping goods but opening factories in more than a dozen countries, with China and Mexico the most important. By 2020, 61% of revenue came from outside Brazil.

The operating culture is long-term: about 2.5% of revenue goes to R&D, executives are promoted from within — only three presidents in 59 years — and the founding families kept almost two-thirds of the shares. Analysts call WEG an oasis and an outlier in Brazil's industrial landscape.

The results are exceptional for Brazilian industry: the company's market value passed 150 billion reais in 2020 after shares rose more than 240% in 12 months, and ten of Brazil's 33 new billionaires on the Forbes list were connected to WEG — the billionaire factory.