Archie: Amp Empire | a job

At home, the electrical current passing through the fixture usually does not exceed 50 amps; A transmission line might have 10,000 or 15,000, and in a nuclear fusion reactor there are millions of amps running around. Biscaia-based Arteche, founded 77 years ago, is able to measure and manage all this power with its equipment.

Iberdero, now known as Iberdrola, was one of its first clients and remains so today, says Luis María Pérez, its general manager. 52% of the capital is in their hands From the third generation of the family (its president is Alexandre Archi) is listed on the stock market and has given way to individual investors, such as the Cordoba businessman Damaso Quintana, to Family officesBanks and funds. Of the family that owns it, only the president and his cousin Lander Archie, secretary of the board of directors, work for the company, which expects to achieve sales of more than 400 million euros this year.

Theirs is a story of resistance and separate growth that was not destroyed, as often happens in other family businesses, by the heirs of the founder, Aurelio Archi. In 1946, he took his first steps in Gordonez Street, in Bilbao, where he produced custom transformers under licence. He then expanded his business to Mungia (Bizkaia), the company’s current headquarters, to produce relays. Now the group owns 13 factories on four continents. It employs more than 2,700 employees, including about 900 engineers. “The family has a very strict protocol that tries to professionalize the company as much as possible,” explains its director, who arrived at Arteche in 2017 after spending a quarter of a century at General Electric. This year, its half-year profit rose 20% to €8 million, partly due to purchases from other companies and partly due to its organic growth. “The market is in a very optimistic position,” says its CEO.

The company is organized by geography, They are all achieving their goals in 2023, which ends now. “We had EBITDA guidance of 32.5 million to 40.5 million, and we will close 2022 in the high range, with a 10% margin.” Consequently, net financial debt, which ended 2022 at 49 million (1.6 times EBITDA), rose 23% to 60 million in the third quarter (1.76 times). They admit that rising interest rates have affected them, even though they have hedging instruments covering 60% of the loans. The debt is concentrated in a long-term syndicated loan, MARF promissory notes and public financing from organizations such as the European Investment Bank, ICO or Cofides. They asked the European Investment Bank for an additional 29 million to finance their innovations and to replenish a 27 million credit previously granted by the entity.

With an R&D laboratory in Madrid where around 200 engineers work, they know that research into new products is what gives them their competitive advantage (their first research center was founded in 1968). Arteche is organized into three departments: the measurement department, where the transformers are produced, “which are like the eyes and ears of an electrical system,” explains Pérez, and which determine the level of voltage present at a given point; Automation, the “brain of the system,” which makes decisions about the information it receives and the efficiency of the network, is made up of equipment that acts as the muscles of the system. It is a specialized company: its equipment is bought by electricity companies in 175 countries. Its competition is a small group of companies such as Siemens, General Electric, Schneider Electric or Hitachi. “We really like to say that we are in the right sector at the right time, and that the macro trends are benefiting us,” they believe at Arteche.

Electrification to reduce polluting emissions motivates governments around the world to invest money in adapting their grids. “This means installing more sophisticated equipment. Keep in mind that if a country closes a thermal plant, it has to replace it with some kind of power generation. We are talking about one thermal plant equivalent to 15 to 20 large photovoltaic plants. In each of them we can provide hardware “.

The United States, along with Mexico, is its first market, followed by Spain and Brazil. “In Spain, large photovoltaic installation projects are very ambitious. Another interesting area is the interconnection between countries, such as the submarine being implemented between Spain and France. Its portfolio of pre-contracted works amounts to 218 million, that is, about six months of work.” In ’21, after Covid, we suffered a little, but we recovered and there is still work to do. “We continue to work to reduce emissions, enhance efficiency, and diversify, both geographically and in products,” explains Perez. They are closely monitoring opportunities to buy other companies, as they did in 2022 with Esitas (which has factories in Turkey and Indonesia) and with Australian group Smart Digital Optics (SDO). Perhaps they will soon add some additional assets, although they are remaining silent for now. Only then will they be able to achieve growth at a rate exceeding 10% in the coming years.

But in the stock market, this optimism is not appreciated. Headlines are down 1.5% this year. “I’m an engineer, and I have no idea about stock market issues,” smiles the CEO. “My goal is to meet the numbers. From there we are in the hands of the market.” They are also in the hands of events. With the war in Ukraine, his business has suffered due to fluctuations in supply chains and rising copper prices. With their factories in Turkey and Argentina, they are now focusing on hyperinflation. “ More than 80% of what our Turkish center manufactures is exported. When selling in euros or dollars, we have little protection. The factory in Argentina is one of our historical factories, and is staffed by very qualified people. We do what we can taking into account the country’s conditions, There is a very big complexity when it comes to importing goods. Israel is one of its clients, but it does not have much weight.

artificial intelligence

Behind Arteche there is a long history of growth, but ahead of us are the challenges of digitalization, cybersecurity or artificial intelligence. Will they threaten your position? Luis Maria Perez sees this as an opportunity. “We have just reorganized to have a global CDO. Our teams are constantly evolving, and we need to invest efforts in modernizing ourselves.

Now that there is a lot of talk about green hydrogen, they are looking for their space in another development, which is nuclear fusion, which does not require radioactive materials or rare elements and is being studied as a source of clean, safe and sustainable energy. Arteche’s unconventional switches, based on optical technology, are being used in experiments in the United States and Europe.

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