After thirty years providing cleaning services, the Sifu group has reached maturity in the Spanish market and is preparing to address the foreign market. The Catalan company, which employs people with functional diversity, has the objective of growing towards Europe. “The pandemic cut short our international strategy but now we want to resume it strongly. At the moment, we are in Andorra and France but we want to promote the business to the rest of the countries in Europe and other latitudes,” says Jon Patxi, the CEO of the group, controlled by the Rovira and Campabadal families.
According to data provided by the manager, less than 10% of income comes from services abroad, a percentage that he would like to increase through two means: own growth and growth through acquisitions. “We have a budget of several million euros to buy competing companies,” says the manager, who acknowledges that at the moment there is no imminent operation.
This year, the company plans to maintain the turnover figure at around 140 million euros and the ebitda (gross profit) at 5% annually. Patxi assures that the business has not suffered from the pandemic crisis since the majority of its activity was not affected by the health crisis. 60% of the business comes from cleaning services for companies and administrations and the rest is distributed between janitorial, gardening, maintenance services, among others. The active client portfolio is 1,200 entities, among which the Public Administration stands out, which contributes 20% of the income.
Sifu has always stood out in the market for being a private company (and not a foundation) that employs people with functional diversity, whether physical or intellectual. “The workforce exceeds 9,000 workers and of this total 5,000 have some type of disability,” says Patxi. The company employs this group through a Special Employment Center. The manager points out that not all the projects that Sifu develops employ people with functional diversity. The majority, he maintains, combine personnel from both groups.
The CEO takes the opportunity to regret the chronic failure by companies with more than 50 workers to hire personnel with functional diversity. “They prefer to pay the fines than give employment to this group,” he points out. The Sifu group ensures that it guarantees maximum professionalism and productivity with its model that has been in operation for 30 years.
