Success stories

The succession planning that has occurred at Wonders, a firm from Elche, where Jaime Carbonell has passed on the leadership role to his sons, has been accompanied by a major corporate reorganization to clarify the structure of the company and improve the way that it is run. These changes were made official yesterday in the Boletín Oficial del Registro Mercantil (Official Gazette of the Spanish Companies Register), and they complete the process, which has been carried out through a double take-over operation and then the split-off of the surviving company. As the first step, C. G. & Hijos took over Danubio Obras-Zapatos and all its assets, then they were divided up again into two new holding companies. Firstly, Hoboken Inversiones, which is now the owner of Calzados Danubio, that is to say, the industrial part, which is controlled by the second generation of the family, the Carbonell Guilló brothers. Jorge Carbonell Guilló is the President of this holding company, a position that in the actual footwear firm is held by his brother Rubén Carbonell Guilló. The founder’s other children are members of the board of directors. And secondly, a new company has been set up that is called C. G. & Hijos SL –different from the original-, this is where the financial investment is concentrated and it is still owned by the founder, as pointed out by the firm yesterday. The impact of the pandemic.

As for the evolution of the company, those in charge of Wonders expect the firm’s turnover to shrink this year by about 30%, after making 29.1 million euros last year, as a result of the crisis caused by the spread of covid-19. However, the company has decided to keep all its productive capacity intact –the company makes all its models in Elche, although to do so it has had to cut the working hours of the different lines. They have done this convinced that things will indeed recover, sooner or later, and that it is always more complicated to recover the productive capacity if it is completely dismantled than if the existing lines are maintained. In this respect, the firm states that the crisis has surprised them but with low level of debt, which means that they have enough resources to tackle the problems that might arise in the next few months with confidence.

One of the social initiatives organised by Grupo Pikolinos and the Fundación Juan Perán, has been to help fight against the COVID by distributing 40 000 masks among the public institutions of the Valencian Community.
It has also been making masks non-stop, 24 hours a day and it has launched assistance programmes for the local communities to help those in need.

The 35^th edition of the IMPORTANTES de INFORMACION Gala was held on the 20^th of February, where the outstanding work of companies, people and institutions during the last year was rewarded.

GESEM would like to congratulate two of its clients that were award winners at this event, because our philosophy is to celebrate the achievements of our clients as if they were ours.

Well done to the “Parque Científico de la UMH” for its hard work in promoting the establishment of new companies and “TM Grupo Inmobiliario” that continues to grow and is still a benchmark in the real estate sector after 50 years.

The Spanish Official State Gazette recently published that the insolvency proceedings of Cerámica La Escandella have come to an end after the agreement with an American fund.

Indeed, a lot of effort and hard work has been put into finding a solution after the crash of 2012. This includes the significant amount of investment needed to adapt the firm, to produce the new line of flat roof tiles, which has enabled it to expand its frontiers and even become Spain’s first exporter of ceramic roof tiles.