Americas
Alex Mestres, Divisional CEO Americas, talks about what underpins strong performance in the region
“The basis of our success is definitely our customer intimacy approach. It’s something that will continue to fuel our growth.”
Divisional CEO Americas
Across Canada, the US, and large swathes of Latin America our strong and well-recognised brands are delivering innovative solutions and great service based on our intimate understanding of customers’ needs.
Throughout the region customer intimacy is absolutely key to our success and underpinned our performance in 2022.
The Americas Continued growth, powered by North America
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Current EBITDA
Our business in North America, where IPEX is our leading brand, continued to outperform in 2022, helped by the strength of the housing and infrastructure segments, investment in irrigation projects and careful management of our resin supply chain.
Strong commercial management in the second half helped to address a slowdown in demand and the impact of high inflation, increased interest rates and a tight labour market.
This fantastic result helped to balance out weaker performance in Latin America. Here trading conditions were much more challenging, with many of our markets affected by the turbulence in the global economy and a deteriorating geopolitical environment in Chile and Peru. Against this backdrop we saw volumes decline as key markets weakened. However, we were helped by strong demand in the housing segment in Central America, mostly Costa Rica.
Boosting investment
We continue to invest heavily in internal and external growth across the region as part of our Growth with Purpose strategy.
In North America we successfully completed the acquisition of Harco, a well-established brand specialising in municipal, irrigation and agricultural markets.
Our new state-of-the-art injection moulding plant at Pineville, North Carolina, is on schedule for completion in the course of 2023 and will set new standards for advanced manufacturing for our industry. And we’re expanding production and distribution capacity at pace.
Local market strength
Investment in operational excellence in our Latin American plants continues to reap benefits in terms of productivity, safety and sustainability and we continue to manage our supply chain carefully.
Our brands have great support from customers, with Durman serving Central America and Colombia, Nicoll addressing the Peruvian and Uruguay markets, and Vinilit our commercial brand in Chile. We are leaders in the residential market in Chile, Costa Rica and Guatemala, and the number two player in infrastructure in the latter two and in Peru.
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Sustainability – progress in LatAm
In Latin America we’ve set a target to include 35,000 tons of recyclate in our products in the next three years. We’re already 94% powered by renewable in the region and our clients are helping us collect used plastic to turn into playground equipment and writing desks for schools.
Think safety! Think big!
Our businesses in Latin America are on a positive growth path and thinking big about operational excellence, most notably safety. State-of-the-art initiatives are being used, including “safety stops” to prevent non-tolerable risks and digital solutions such as voice-directed warehousing.
Hybrid working – a new model
After three full years of remote working, adjusting to a hybrid model was always going to be challenging. The IPEX Customer Insight and Ideation team used a special two-day workshop to plan for working under this new model, creating a Team Charter guiding how we work together, communicate, and resolve conflicts.
High-rise fire safety
Our BlazeMaster® fire safety system has been selected for two residential developments in Lima, which will be amongst Peru’s tallest buildings. The need for light systems meant our certified plastic solution was favoured over metal pipes. Our system is recommended for use in buildings over 21 storeys tall.
Cross-fertilising ideas
In Latin America, we use ideation workshops to explore next-generation ideas on tackling challenges around water access and population growth.
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Durman’s smart agriculture solutions are making farming more sustainable in Central America.
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Costa Rica’s gender parity initiative – a fantastic first
In Costa Rica, we have signed up to a Gender Parity Initiative - we are the first construction company locally to commit to reducing gender gaps, in terms of opportunity, career development and pay.
Our Bermondsey plant near Toronto is leading the way on gender diversity, with women now making up half of our line operators.
Attracting the diverse talent we need
Our success depends on attracting diverse talent that can bring fresh perspectives to Aliaxis. In North America, we have stepped up efforts to reach a wider pool of talent, taking part in 62 special recruitment events last year, of which 12 were aimed at increasing the number of women we recruit.
Coming to Harco has been a fantastic opportunity to leverage Aliaxis’ investment capability, safety and operational excellence, while preserving the customer focus that makes Harco a respected brand.”
Joseph DeMarie
Harco’s Director of Manufacturing and Supply Chain
Extending our customer reach in the US
We’re getting closer to our end customers by extending our network of 28 US distribution centres and last year we announced openings in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, with additional centres planned in the southern and western US in 2023.
A huge production boost
We’re investing €140 million to build 28 new state-of-the-art extrusion production lines in Asheville, North Carolina, Lawton, Oklahoma, and Fort Pierce, Florida. This increased capacity will allow Aliaxis to deliver ground-breaking products already in our development pipeline.
Harco transaction continues push for US growth
We’ve completed the acquisition of fittings manufacturer, Harco, a strong company with a fantastic heritage.
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