Lanco and Pintuco Do Colombia Deals
Grupo Mundial
grows its coatings
footprint.
by Charles W. Thurston
Latin America Correspondent
thurstoncw@rodpub.com
Lanco Paint and Pintuco are separately doing deals involving the Colombian paint market, with Miami-based Lanco targeting
the domestic market and Bogota-based Pintuco
targeting the Costa Rica market. The Lanco deal,
a new joint venture with Corona, was not valued
publicly. The $10 million Pintuco deal, involving
the purchase of Naranjo, Costa Rica-based
Vastalux, will include a $5 million refurbishment
of the latter’s manufacturing facility.
Lanco partners with Corona
Lanco’s new joint venture with Colombia’s Orga-nizacion Corona will serve both as a means for
the former to reach the Colombian market, and
later, for the venture to serve other South American markets, according to Rubin Irizarry, a purchasing agent at Lanco Manufacturing, in San
Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. Corona will hold 55 percent of the equity of the new venture, and Lanco
will hold 45 percent, according to a company
statement in Colombia. Among Corona subsidiaries is the Sodimac hardware chain, broadly
present in the Colombian retail market.
Lanco manufactures paint in the United
States and the Caribbean, including Costa Rica,
the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The
company has 32 retail locations in Puerto Rico,
its regional headquarters for Latin America. The
company also maintains several distribution
centers in Central America.
Pintuco acquires Vasalux
Colombia’s Grupo Mundial unit Compañía
Global de Pinturas, which owns the Pintuco brand,
is making the purchase of Vastalux to better serve
the Central American paint market, which the
company estimates at over 30 million gallons per
year. The company already exports an estimated
$70 million worth of paint per year to South
American markets in Brazil and Peru, and Central
American markets in Honduras, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Panama. The company also has
begun exports to several countries in Africa; the
company exports to nearly 30 countries overall.
By next year, the Costa Rican facility will serve
all Central American paint markets except
Panama, which will continue to be supplied from
Colombia, where the company has a plant at Ri-onegro, in Antioquia. Vastalux, which produces an
estimated 1.5 million gallons per year, has a work
force of about 50 employees in Costa Rica, to
which Pintuco will add staff in 2012. The company estimates that the paint market in Costa Rica
is over seven million gallons of paint per year.
Brazil is among markets Grupo Mundial is
considering for an expansion of its Pintuco
paint business.
Global de Pinturas currently manufactures 27
million gallons of paint per year and has an estimated 4,300 employees, according to one Colombian report, with manufacturing already in
position in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and
Dutch Antilles. The company claims leadership in
the Colombian, Ecuadorian and Venezuelan paint
markets. Apart from its leading Pintuco brand,
Global de Pinturas holds the Pica, Pintec, Terinsa,
Ico, Graniplast and Mundial brands directly or
jointly with local country partners. Paint represents about 25 percent of the company’s sales—
reported at $862 million in 2010—alongside
other chemicals and water businesses.
Grupo Mundial, which is controlled by the
Saldarriaga family, has shares held by some 180
investors from various countries. While the company is listed on the Colombia stock exchange
for purposes of transparency and good governance, shares are not yet traded, according to a
statement made to the Colombia press by
Grupo Mundial president Ernest Fajardo Pinto,
in October. Future investments might necessitate
a public share issue, he noted.
Brazil is among markets Grupo Mundial is
considering for an expansion of its Pintuco paint
business. The group already is expanding its
chemical and water businesses there. CW
