Press room

The prize was presented at the Zestoa spa, at a ceremony attended by 430 people from the business, economic and political world, amongst which the following stand out: the Head of the Regional Council of Gipuzkoa, José Joan González de Txabarri, the Basque Deputy Minister for Innovation and Industrial Development, Iñaki Telletxea and the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, José Mª Echarri.

The prize presented to ULMA Construcción was collected by the company’s Chief Executive, Carmelo Bilbao and by the Managing Director for Europe, Cristóbal Alvarez. During the same ceremony, the Prize for the Businessman of the Year was presented to Angel Iglesias; the Prize for the best SME in Gipuzkoa to Yurrita e Hijos, and the Prize for the Best Service Company to Ibercom.

ULMA was highlighted for its accelerated internationalisation process which has taken it from “having a token presence abroad -2% of turnover in 1993- to being among the three biggest companies in the world in the Building and Civil Engineering Sector with international sales of close to 40%, a total of 16 subsidiaries in Europe, Asia and America and four production plants in Brazil, Chile, Poland and Italy”. Its short and medium term targets are Mexico, China, Indonesia, Algeria and Dubai.

2004 was an especially fruitful year for ULMA Construcción, with the takeover of 100% of the Polish company Bauma, which has its headquarters in Warsaw, and 51% of the Italian company Alpi, which includes a purchase option up to 75%. Alpi has its headquarters in Bolzano, has a turnover of around 20 million euros and a workforce of 97 people. Its takeover is enabling Ulma Construcción to penetrate the difficult Italian market and start to make its mark in Singapore, as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia through its engineering company Bepatech.

Bauma, with a turnover of 20 million euros and a workforce of 160 people is the second biggest Polish company in the sector with a 30% market share and excellent prospects for expansion over the next few years. In addition to a strong presence in Poland, the company is starting to penetrate other countries in the region, through its subsidiaries in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In 2004, ULMA Construcción’s sales totalled 253 million euros of which 98.4 million were international sales, multiplying by 2.4 the international sales for the previous year which accounted for 41.07 million euros. For 2005, the forecasts are for international sales totalling 108.4 million euros, which is equivalent to 41.2% of total turnover, which is estimated to reach 263 million euros.

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