International Coatings Scene
LATIN AMERICA
BY CHARLES W. THURSTON
LATIN AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT
THURSTONCW@RODPUB.COM
Grupo Solid fosters exports
Grupo Solid
is expanding
throughout
the Central
and South
America
regions.
Guatemala’s Grupo Solid S.A., also know
as Latin American Paint Corp. (Lapco),
is enhancing its foray into neighboring
markets with plans for growth in the Caribbean,
Mexico and several South American countries.
“We have doubled our paint business over
the past three years to approximately $100
million and now command 32% of Central
America’s paint volume,” said Yara Argueta,
CEO of the Guatemala City-based company,
which is controlled by the Ascoli family.
The company is planning to grow in “four
dimensions” and spending approximately $10
million over the near term, with expectations
that manufacturing capacity at a new plant at
Estuintla, near Puerto Quetzal on the Pacific
coast, will increase the current capacity of 15 million liters to 20 million, then 25 million liters and
beyond, according to Argueta. A second pillar of
growth support will be continued strengthening
of the company’s position within Central
America; Grupo Solid now has offices in Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and
Nicaragua, apart from the Guatemalan base.
The third pillar of growth will be to expand
segment activity from architectural line dominance to a greater presence in automotive and
wood coatings. This expansion will also include
greater sales of paint-related products including
brushes, solvents and other hardware. And the
fourth pillar of the plan is to vertically integrate
into the manufacture of more raw materials;
while the company currently produces alkyd
resins, it does not yet produce latex resins. Such
vertical integration may also include greater
packaging capabilities with plastics.
“It’s very aggressive, but we are going to more
than double our capacity and sales,” Argueta
said. Among new country markets the company
is targeting are Puerto Rico and Cuba, southern
Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Colombia will serve
as a sub-regional distribution center for the
company as Panama does.
A critical tool of growth is intense marketing,
Argueta said. Lower expenditures on oil this
year will permit more marketing, she suggested.
The company’s lines already are distributed by
Home Depot in some parts of Mexico, and it
expects to begin sales through Nacional in
Puerto Rico. The company operates its own
hardware distribution chain, called DeFerret,
and has a network of retail sales stores under
the Sytec brand and franchises under the
Corona brand. Overall, more than 6,000 points
of sale are in the company system.
While the Central American region has suffered economically from the global slowdown,
the rising per capita gross domestic product
(GDP) is encouraging household paint sales,
Argueta said. The country’s estimated $68 billion economy translates into per capita GDP of
$5,200, according to varying U.S. government
estimates. Still the distribution of wealth is
highly skewed in Guatemala.
Among leading brands, Grupo Solid produces La Paleta, Corona and Nova brands, as
well as specialty brands Cromatic and
Clasica. In 2004, the company began exclusive regional distribution of AkzoNobel’s
International line, and in 2005 added distribution of the Wanda and Sikkens brands. CW
Yara Argueta, CEO of Grupo Solid S.A., also
known as Latin American Paint Corp. (Lapco),
which is controlled by the Ascoli family.
