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From fixing transistors to global engineering

2020-03-01T02:09:26.653Z


The Mallorcan Sampol group, which invoices 175 million, goes to the fixed income market to finance its growth in sectors such as energy and hotel


In the streets of the Mexican city of Chihuahua, for some time, dozens of surveillance cameras record the course of life. When the victim of a crime gives the notice to the police, the agents of the authority can know what is happening at that moment by consulting the tablet they carry and that allows access to the cameras scattered throughout the public areas of the city. All their performance is recorded in a small camera that they wear on the jacket's flap, which has allowed the police response to crime victims to be considerably reduced after the implementation of the new system designed by the Mallorcan engineering company Sampol

With a turnover of 175 million euros in 2018 and presence in 10 countries, what began as a small family business has become one of the giants of applied engineering in Spain, with important projects in the field of energy and the facilities for large hotel complexes and airport infrastructures. To finance its expansion, in February of last year it made a debt issuance of 25 million euros in the fixed income market (MARF), which this month has complemented with a program of promissory notes of up to 50 million.

“My father discovered that the future was in electricity. He began studying in Barcelona, ​​but had to return to Mallorca and in 1934 he founded an electrical engineering company. During the Civil War he survived the workshop fixing radio devices, ”says Gabriel Sampol, president of the multinational, who at 84 years of age is still linked to the business, now led by his eldest daughter, Carmen, CEO. The small family society then began to bet on electricity and took advantage of the tourist hatching of Mallorca to carry out work in hotels, until in 1972 he obtained the lighting project of the cathedral of Palma, which would later lead them to make the jump to the Peninsula . “I had a lot of pressure from the outside, they wanted to scare us and we had a lot of problems with other companies because we weren't known. We made the order and from here we obtained the classification to continue working for the State. Then we illuminate the walls of Ibiza, the cathedral of Teruel, that of Toledo and the city of Girona, ”says Gabriel Sampol.

The internationalization came in 1990, when they received the call from the Riu family, who had just acquired some land in the Dominican Republic where they intended to build a hotel. “There was no light, no water, no roads. They had tried to find an energy company that built a small plant and we had experience in cogeneration plants, which are mandatory in airports and hospitals, ”says the president. For his daughter Carmen, the relationship with hoteliers was crucial in the company's leap to the Caribbean and from there to other areas where they develop projects, such as Mexico, the US, Cape Verde or Italy.

All in one

Sampol presented in Fitur the Icosahedron platform, which unifies the management, control and entertainment of hotels. "The customer from the television can book restaurants, hire excursions or order a bottle of champagne," explains Carmen Sampol. The hotelier in turn has benefits that allow him to improve energy efficiency, through a control system that regulates the air conditioning when the traveler has left the room, or know the tastes and habits of tourists to optimize resources in the establishment . It also offers tools for maintenance personnel to instantly detect leaks or breakdowns in operating systems. “The platform allows us to improve costs, optimize personnel management and obtain customer satisfaction,” concludes the CEO of Sampol.

Today, with more than 1,500 employees, they work with all the major hotel chains in the Balearic Islands and other international ones such as Hilton or Hyatt, in projects that have been pioneers for the sector, such as the passage of copper cable to fiber optics within the rooms of the establishments. “Before the fiber stayed in the building and then got inside with conventional cable. We wired a whole hotel with fiber and discovered that it was 20% cheaper and, in addition, much more resistant to rodents. The provision of services was impressive at the level of Wi-Fi and television, ”explains Carmen Sampol.

Central on T4

Despite its implementation in the hotel market, it is in the energy sector where Sampol has the highest turnover. In 2003 he won the award for the construction of the T4 cogeneration plant at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport, which offers the building cooling, heat and electricity. "Cogeneration is the most efficient model that exists today, it is the transition between burning fossil material and a total renewable energy system," says the CEO. He regrets that cogeneration is a technology that is "not supported" because, he believes, the energy giants are committed to large plants and this new model of distributed energy is "totally different" than they are used to. "In Spain, factories could benefit from the cheaper costs of this energy and that is environmentally more respectful," he says.

For Carmen Sampol the optimal scenario would go through a 100% renewable energy system and, therefore, they are devoting part of their efforts to research on biomass, photovoltaic energy and batteries, which mostly do not have sufficient capacity and, if they have it , are so expensive that they are not viable. "Right now this energy mix of cogeneration is needed, where you put energy into motors when photovoltaics, biomass and battery are not enough," he emphasizes. He believes that "we must be brave" to change towards a renewable model "that fights against coal and evolves."

The company focuses its most immediate projects in the northeastern United States, where energy has a high price and they believe they can be competitive. Meanwhile, several important jobs will continue to be developed in Mexico and Jamaica waiting to open in the near future to new markets such as Maldives.

Source: elparis

All business articles on 2020-03-01

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