International Coatings Scene
LATIN AMERICA
BY CHARLES W. THURSTON
LATIN AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT
THURSTONCW@RODPUB.COM
Mexican furniture sales attract
Comex, Sayerlack
Comex and
Sayerlack
form a JV
to serve the
Mexican
furniture
coatings
industry.
Growing sales of Mexican-made furniture both in Mexico and the U.S. may bode well for paint and
coatings companies targeting the segment like Grupo Comex and Renner
Sayerlack. U.S. imports of furniture
were worth more than $22 billion last
year, and cost is king in the still-depressed U.S. furniture market.
This mix of conditions seems to be working for Mexican domestic goods giant
Grupo Famsa, which reported a first-quar-ter 2009 total sales jump of 43% in peso
terms to an equivalent of about $85 million. The chain operates 351 stores in
Mexico and 39 in the U.S., within which
furniture accounts for approximately 20%
of total sales in Mexico and approximately
35% of sales in the U.S. stores.
Mexican furniture manufacturing was a
rising target for some paint and coatings
manufacturers last year. In November,
Mexico-based Comex and Brazil-based
Sayerlack formed a joint venture based in
Mexico City to serve the estimated $170 million Mexican furniture coatings industry,
with plans to begin operations during first-quarter 2009. While Comex already had a
strong position in the U.S. market through
investments in regional paint companies
under Professional Paint Inc., Sayerlack
only operated one distribution center in the
U.S. in North Carolina.
With sales estimated in the $179 million
range, Renner Sayerlack claims to control
about 50% of the Brazilian wood finishing
market, as the largest player in the segment in Latin America. The company’s primary wood finishes manufacturing facility
is in Cajamar, Sao Paulo state, and it oper-
ates another in Minerbio, Italy. Two years
ago, PPG acquired the architectural and
industrial lines of Renner.
Comex, which has sales well over $1 billion and is ranked as the fourth largest
manufacturer in North America, is more
known for architectural paint. Comex operates a network of 3,000 sales points in
Mexico through its own Ferreterías Calzada
and through third-party retail chains. Last
year, the company announced plans to
brand 27 stores in Jalisco in a big-box format. Comex’s latest plant, in Querétaro,
cost between $40-50 million, according to
the companies’ estimate at the beginning of
construction in 2007.
In February of this year, Comex opened a
Visual Color Evaluation Lab, especially
designed to evaluate the color of its paints
on surfaces exposed to controlled lighting
conditions and different observation angles.
Comex’s U.S. regional network of chains are
known for unique regional formulations;
these include Color Wheel, Frazee, Kwal
and Parker Paint. The company also owns
General Paint in Canada.
Mexican furniture sales are expected to
rise significantly in the U.S. as Latino
demographic growth continues. Famsa
sales by U.S. state last year came from
California with 54% of the total, from Texas
with 38%, from Arizona with five percent
and from Nevada, with two percent. The
company now has more than 40 stores in
two dozen U.S. cities. Over the past year,
Famsa bought out the La Canasta chain,
with 12 stores ranging from Anaheim, CA
to Plano, TX. Famsa operates its own credit system for time payment purchases with
low interest rates. CW
