The German group Freudenberg celebrates fifty years in Spain by renewing its industrial commitment: it is completing the construction of a new factory for automotive components in Parets del Vallès, with an investment of 11 million euros, which it plans to have up and running before the end of anus. The new factory, with a surface area of 6,500 m², will be heavily automated and will be neutral in CO₂ emissions.
Jaume Cané, director for Spain of the multinational, known especially for being the manufacturer of Vileda, highlights that Freudenberg "is committed to the continuity of the automotive sector in Spain, at a time when there are doubts about its continuity throughout the South of Europe".
The group had a turnover of 342 million euros in Spain last year, 14% more than the previous year, and 70% corresponded to the value of its industrial activity: it has seven factories that export 60% of its production. Four of them are in Parets, where the group established itself in the 1970s to be a supplier of non-woven fabric for the clothing industry, and another three in Martorell, Cascante (Navarra) and Madrid, were incorporated at the beginning of this century with the purchase of Vibracoustic.
The company has the German industrial mentality in its DNA: the group was founded 170 years ago, in Weinheim, in Baden Wurttemberg, from a small tannery and has maintained family ownership but has gradually incorporated new materials and new uses. . Today the group invoices 11,753 million euros (15% more than in 2021), generated a cash flow of 607 million and has 51,000 workers in 60 countries (a thousand of them in Spain).
The family nature of the company has also led to the group having a very low debt. “We finance ourselves with our own funds and have the highest credit rating. In an environment in which rates rise, that gives us peace of mind that the groups that have grown into debt do not have”.
“We are constantly innovating,” says Cané. More than 30% of the products we sell are less than 4 years old”. The R D is concentrated in Germany and R D i is carried out in the Spanish plants: "here we do innovation in processes to produce more efficiently". The focus on efficiency has allowed the Spanish subsidiary to have a joint operating profit of 25 million euros, which is 13.5% more than in 2021, and allocate 7.7 million to invest in improving its facilities in 2022.
Freudenberg Spain bases its strategy on diversification, in products and in markets, and this has allowed it to resist well despite the fall in production that the automotive sector had last year due to the lack of chips and logistical problems. “The automotive industry accounts for 42% of sales, with components for shock absorbers and metal closures. Chemical products provide us with 20%, with automobile lubricants, under the Kluber brand. Cleaning products, Vileda above all, are 19%, and the rest is mainly non-woven fabric”, a product used to cover cables and electrical devices, which is experiencing a boom due to the rise in electrification.
The non-woven fabric precisely shows the company's resilience and capacity for change, explains Cané. “When the clothing sector was relocated to Asia, starting in 2004, we reconverted the factory and now we mainly manufacture electrical coatings,” he pointed out.
With this same spirit, the company has now focused its growth on climate sustainability and the new mobility. The company works with battery, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and has achieved a milestone with the first methanol-powered fuel cell system. "We are also committed to developing filtration systems, which are essential, for example, in the current situation of lack of drinking water."
With the experience of the multinational, Cané defends that "Spain must be an industrial country" and it has the conditions to be one. “It is true that we do not have raw materials, and we are no longer a low-wage country, but with the great automation of today's factories, labor no longer weighs so much. Besides, here we do things well”.
In his opinion, however, the administrations can support the sector more. “It is not just a matter of giving aid or subsidies. The regulations that affect us should be made in an industrial key, in areas such as the environment, or even taxation. Or at least consult the industry on how it will affect you. And a great boost to professional training is needed. We have a hard time finding staff. And industry pays higher salaries than services and allows for long and stable professional careers.”
