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Over the last few years, Spain’s Briolf Group has expanded at a rapid pace. Now with the company set to invest US$30M in its first production plant in the USA, PPCJ spoke to Jaume Juher, President of Briolf Group, about the coatings industry’s challenges and opportunities and the company’s plans for the future
Q. What made Briolf choose to invest in a production facility in the USA now? And what made you choose North Carolina as the location?
A. Over the last few years, the business of our different companies in the US have had a very positive evolution. We felt we have a lot of new opportunities and that the best is yet to come. At the same time, we have an important market in Mexico and new commercial subsidiaries in Canada and Puerto Rico have opened recently.
At this point, having production facilities in the region became crucial for us to support our future strategy. We want to become a local player, be competitive and adapt our offering to the most requiring of customers. That’s the reason we decided to go to US, as it is obviously the market that offers us a bigger potential.
As for location, we chose North Carolina because it matches perfectly all our requirements in terms of logistics, industrial environment, access to our main markets and main potential suppliers, labour market, etc. Also, we have to say that all public representatives from NC state and Union County helped us a lot to take this decision, as they were extremely business-oriented.
Q. What will the focus be for your production site in the US? For example, what products will you manufacture there and what coating market sectors are you interested in?
A. On the first stage, our intention is to start producing the products included in the range of our bigger company, Roberlo.
So, the first ranges produced in the states will be the whole range of fillers, primers, clears, etc for the automative refinishing market. The nexts steps foresee the production of industrial coatings range (focused on industrial maintenance, commercial vehicles, etc.) and in a longer term perspective, we also foresee local production for the rest of the business divisions.
Q. Will you export products from the US to other nearby countries, or is the plan to purely supply the domestic market?
A. The plan is that we want to cover other countries from US plant. Mexico is, of course, the bigger market in the region, and it is having also a very positive growth. So we will export to Mexico from NC. But also Canada and Puerto Rico, (where we have our own people) and some other Central America and Caribbean countries, where we are currently exporting to from Spain.
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Q. The US election will take place in November of this year. Do you have any concerns, worries or hopes about the result – whichever way it goes – affecting your business?
A. Our concerns are not connected to these specific elections in November. As a global manufacturer, our concerns are connected to the impact of geopolitical situations on worldwide logistics, raw materials cost and availability, etc. In other words, the only wish we have related with the November elections is that the result helps companies to have the most favourable international business environment, considering all the global risks already in place.
Q. Briolf has expanded significantly in the last three years (I believe you have nearly doubled your turnover). This was directly after COVID – what was your strategy for achieving such success in a post-COVID world?
A. We designed our plan 2022-2026 during 2021. At this point, uncertainty was still very high as the COVID world was not over and many markets and sectors had a very unclear future. However, we always say that we are a challenge-oriented company.
We based our strategy on five pillars: diversification, internationalisation, intensification, innovation and operational excellence.
Some of these helped us to achieve a strong organic growth. Then, we also took advantage of some good market opportunities, and we acquired three companies during years 2022 and 2023. Of course, this helped us a lot to become stronger both quantitatively and qualitatively, as our revenue grew significantly and at the same time, we entered into new added-value markets and technologies.
Q. What, in your opinion, are the main challenges and opportunities in the coatings industry at the moment?
A. The main challenge is probably to be able to give the right answer at the right time to all elements connected with regulatory and legal topics. Our industry is clearly in the spotlight and companies must be very accurate if we want to be excellent in this respect.
We still have a lot of opportunities with diversification, both geographically and product-wise, in all countries where we have just a small presence. This must be our main focus.
Also, any innovation connected with sustainability or products that improve performance in terms of cost reduction or process efficiency will remain top in terms of opportunities.
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Q. What, in your opinion. are the main trends affecting the coatings industry at the moment?
A. If I should say just one thing, I’d say the main trend is how to be able to offer same performance with much better environmental impact. Companies worldwide are looking to achieve this target and the whole industry is providing better tools to do it.
Q. Supply chain logistics is a common complaint at the moment – did this feed into your decision to have a manufacturing base in the US and how does the issue of supply chains affect your business?
A. Yes, of course. Logistics but also long term stability were the two main factors for our decision. Our business in the US is already large enough to justify a factory. So, we did not want to continue having the risk of sending products from Europe, considering that logistics or currency could one day have a very negative impact on our business in all America’s region.
Q. Where do you see yourself expanding to next? Are there any new geographic regions you are considering investing in?
A. If you look our geographic expansion, the whole America Region is covered by many commercial subsidiaries, the factory in Brazil and now the US factory is on track. So maybe the next area for us to approach should be Asia-Pacific. We have a couple of countries with commercial subsidiaries, but we are still far from having a significant presence in many countries. Asia should be the next area to approach.
Q. And in terms of products, are there any new market segments that Briolf is considering investing in the near future?
A. Considering our three business divisions, coatings/aerosols/bonding , the last one is still the smallest in terms of revenue.
Probably, if we find the right opportunity, we could think about new investments expanding the existing portfolio of technologies among the adhesives and fillers market.
