THE PRESIDENT of Sherpa Capital, Eduardo Navarro, told trade media that the Dogi textile concern had not been acquired with a view to it remaining in business with annual sales of around EUR 45m. The acquisition was made, he said, to grow the company back into a reference player in its category. Now that the new management had gone some way to re-structuring the company, it was concentrating on reducing costs, with savings of EUR 0.26m in the Spanish plant being the objective this year. Mr Navarro said that the same measures that had allowed the US subsidiary Elastic Fabrics of America (EFA) to realize savings of EUR 0.65m last year were to be implemented at the El Masnou mill. He reaffirmed that the longer-term objective was to drive growth through acquisitions and joint ventures.
The EFA cost cutting measures included the dismissal of 12 workers, which local labour laws would make difficult in Spain. But there is little doubt that other means can be found to reduce costs there.