WEG

WEG manufactures electric motors the way termites build mounds: modular components assembled into complex systems optimized for specific environments. The company's BRL 38 billion revenue in 2024 (16.87% increase) with 57% from external markets shows a Brazilian organism that successfully colonized global industrial ecosystems. Q3 2024 revenue jumped 22.1% year-over-year to BRL 9.85 billion with net profit up 20.4% to BRL 1.57 billion. By Q3 2025, revenue reached BRL 10.3 billion with 22.2% EBITDA margin and 32.4% ROIC—evidence of capital deployed with precision into high-return niches.

The biological insight is modularity as competitive advantage. WEG doesn't build custom solutions from scratch—it combines standardized motors, drives, automation systems, and transformers into application-specific configurations. This is the termite colony architecture: identical workers, specialized behaviors, emergent complexity. The 2024 acquisition of Regal Rexnord's industrial motors business (Marathon, Cemp, Rotor brands, 2,800 employees, 10 factories) shows horizontal expansion through absorption of compatible organisms rather than internal development. The BRL 2.6 billion investment in T&D capacity across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico demonstrates WEG understands that industrial equipment sales follow infrastructure buildout—position factories near growing grids, capture installation momentum.

Here's the challenge: Q1 2025 revenue grew 25.5%, but executives warn that distributed generation slowdown could impact revenue streams and Trump tariffs create "fundamental mistake" trade barriers. WEG's 57% international revenue means macro policy shifts affect growth trajectories the company can't control. The organism adapted brilliantly to open trade environments—selling motors worldwide because performance and price beat local alternatives. Tariff barriers fragment that unified market, forcing localized production that reduces scale economies. CEO calling tariffs a "fundamental mistake" is biologically accurate: barriers prevent organisms optimized for free movement from accessing resources efficiently. WEG built the superior motor. Now it must navigate artificial barriers erected by political organisms optimizing for different fitness functions. The $29.5 billion market cap and 32.4% ROIC show the core remains healthy. The external environment just became less hospitable to specialized global predators.