AiCROV aims to double its results this year
«Aicrov quiere duplicar resultados este año» — Diari de Tarragona, 12 February 2012, in Spanish
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Original headline
«Aicrov quiere duplicar resultados este año»
Our translation: «AiCROV aims to double its results this year»
Standfirst
«Su plan quinquenal se basa en potenciar la fabricación de máquinas para envasado e internacionalizar el negocio»
Our translation: «Its five-year plan is built on strengthening the manufacture of filling machines and internationalising the business»
By Rafel Villa. Economia i Negocis, Sunday edition.
Our translation (extract)
Aicrov took off in 2008 — the year the company’s turnover broke its steady 10% to 15% growth and fell by 40%. The response of the company Albert Rovira runs was to move into a new niche: building the machines, and even the production lines, that until then it had only sold and repaired.
“We saw there was a market, because our customers were asking us for it. We had started out selling German machines, which we also maintained. But they are very expensive, and once we saw what the customers needed we decided to manufacture, because we had already made the investment needed to work on those machines,” explains Albert Rovira.
Aicrov builds machines for the automatic filling of liquids, adapted to each customer’s needs. The standard machines are 5×2 metres and 10×2 metres, but it is now producing the SP3 model, which occupies 16×13 metres and is in fact a complete production unit that the company builds in its unit in the Riu Clar estate and then transports and assembles at the customer’s site. The customers are essentially in the chemical and petrochemical sectors, though work is occasionally done for pharmaceutical or food companies.
The domestic market. Aicrov’s business is essentially in Spain, which accounts for 90% of its sales. Curiously, its order book does not hold many customers in Tarragona: sales are concentrated above all in Barcelona, the Basque Country and Valencia, and to a lesser extent in the Canary Islands, Andalusia and Madrid. The reason, Albert Rovira explains, is that the chemical companies present in Tarragona tend to belong to multinationals, or are of a size that makes their head offices hard to reach. “Spanish chemical companies, on the other hand, are smaller and easier to get to,” he says.