Ten years have passed since Mapfre and Allianz launched the company Solunion, specialized in credit insurance, surety and risk management services for SMEs and large companies. In the sector, the alliance was unprecedented, since both groups were (and continue to be) direct competition in the insurance market. But ten years ago the Spanish economy was suffering the effects of the financial crisis and Mapfre and Allianz Trade decided to join forces to gain ground in the sale of credit insurance.
Solunion was born as an independent company but supported, in equal parts, by the capital and experience of both corporations. As a result, the firm gradually conquered the Spanish business fabric, reaching a market share of 21%, ranking behind the companies Crédito y Caución and Cesce.
In parallel, Solunion expanded into Latin America, a region in which it now has a presence in 15 countries. Among them, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Panama or Brazil stand out, where the company has its own offices. “We are the first credit insurer in Latin America and we believe that we still have a long way to go there. It is a less mature market than the Spanish one”, assesses Alberto Berges, the CEO of the firm.
In the year 2022, Solunion entered 296.5 million euros, of which half came from the Latin American market, approximately. The evolution of the business was positive, since in 2021 the company had invoiced 245 million euros. Berges says that the growth – of 21% – is explained by the foreign market and the improvement in margins. Last year, "gross profit was 94 million euros," he details.
In addition, the manager considers the economic situation key. "In times of uncertainty like the current one, companies want to protect themselves against the risk of possible defaults by their clients and for this reason they take out more insurance," acknowledges the manager. Beyond the sale of this service, the company is also dedicated to risk prevention, analyzing the financial stability of more than 80 million companies around the world. This way you can advise your client portfolio with more knowledge of the facts.
Although the economic situation is unfavorable and that encourages insurance contracting, insolvencies, at least in Spain, have evolved downward in the first half, which could have partly benefited your business. According to his calculations, the insolvencies of Spanish companies have fallen by 17% in the first half of the year. "This is explained by the impact of the lawyers' strike and the delays in business registrations, the measures to contain inflation and the new support tools of the bankruptcy law," says Berges.
After the end of the strike, the trend has changed in the second quarter with a 5% rise in contests between April and June. Micro companies have been the most affected, especially those linked to the construction and services sector and those that are based in Catalonia and Galicia, the communities with the most insolvencies.
In relation to this year, the company does not venture to make any forecast of results, although it is confident of continuing on the same path of growth. Behind the firm is a team that reaches almost 600 workers. The workforce is divided between Spain (352) and Latin America (246).
In Barcelona, the firm employs a team of 14 people who are in charge of managing the Catalan and Balearic markets. The offices were opened the year Solunion was born, 2013, and nine years later the firm decided to open new ones, in the upper part of Avinguda Diagonal.
“In this community we work for both SMEs and large companies, especially those linked to the industrial sector. We have a long-standing client portfolio in the agri-food and metal sectors," says the manager, who took office in 2019 after accumulating a long career at Mapfre.
