The great lady of detergent in Europe is Sevillian, works at the university and has a turnover of 423 million

Concha Yoldi, president of Persán, at the University of Seville, the city's former Tobacco Factory.PACO PUENTES

Millions of Europeans do their laundry every day with detergents made in Seville.

Three out of four single-dose capsules are produced in the main factory in Persán, a leading company in its sector on the continent, chaired since March by the Andalusian businesswoman Concha Yoldi (Seville, 66 years old), after a lifetime linked to the founded firm by his grandfather in 1941.

Yoldi takes office after the death of her husband, José Moya Sanabria, president of Persán since 1994. At his death, the Sevillian company of detergents and fabric softeners had reached a record turnover of 423 million euros in 2020 (22% more than in 2019), immersed in an international expansion plan with a presence in Spain, Poland and France.

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In this context, Concha Yoldi continues the family legacy, after 25 years in the vice presidency. Yoldi is also president of the Social Council of the University of Seville. Heir to the family business Persán, where she has passed through almost all professional levels, she has been successively Head of Purchasing, Director of Purchasing and Procurement, member of the Management Committee and Vice President of the Board of Directors.

“It has been a clear commitment to continuity. It was what was planned: continuity in everything, not only in the presidency of the company, but in the capital, which continues to be 100% in the hands of the family. And continuity also in the same body responsible for the company's strategy, with our CEO, Antonio Somé, together with the vice-presidents Francisco Javier and Juan Moya Yoldi ”, explains Concha Yoldi, who quotes EL PAÍS —and it is not by chance— in his office at the University of Seville, in the old Tobacco Factory in the Andalusian capital.

The unique profile of Yoldi in the Andalusian business world is structured precisely in this double role. “I always say that I am a compendium of both, the university and the company. My paternal grandfather was the first professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Seville and my maternal grandfather was the one who founded Persán. I am the result of both formations ”.

“When I become president of the social council,” he recalls, “I put the focus precisely on that alliance.

At the University of Seville there are more than 600 research groups.

And, on the other hand, as we know, the size of the companies in Andalusia, but also in Spain, is minimal.

How many micro-SMEs are there?

They cannot have R + D + I departments.

How nice it would be if the university became that department that all these small companies need, where there are also so many researchers working continuously ”.

Headquarters

Graduated in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Seville and a “crush” worker, as defined, she keeps her two offices active, that of the academic institution in the historic center of the capital, and the one she has just occupied in Persán, the factory at the exit of Seville towards Malaga, which is classified as the largest detergent factory in Europe and the second in the world, with 1,100 employees. "Here is the headquarters of the company and from here all the growth operations of the company are led," he says.

These days, Yoldi is adapting the old office of José Moya, to which he has moved.

There she has found, she says, “by tidying up some drawers on my husband's desk, the loan we made to Banco Atlántico, without which we were practically bankrupt when we refounded the company”.

And it is that the Persán that we know today is the product of the entrepreneurial vision of the Moya-Yoldi couple, who in 1994 took control of a company “that was practically bankrupt and today is one of the most advanced chemical companies in Spain and a benchmark among detergent manufacturers throughout Europe ”, he acknowledges.

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The story is as follows: “Persán was about to suspend payments, the situation was dramatic. At that time, I had been with the company for around 10 years and I wanted to convince my husband to join the company. It cost me a lot, he had the itch that it was my business, a family matter. But finally we guarantee with our personal assets, which at that time was not very important as was natural, a credit that the company had to be able to pay the payrolls of August 1994 ”.

And why her husband? “Because of your experience. He came from business consulting, budget control, and the truth is that at that time his preparation was far superior to mine. He, in addition, has been an extraordinary person, with a privileged head, very creative, he had a disruptive thinking as they say now. Obviously, it was the person, ”he recalls.

In this way, the Moya-Yoldi couple reorganized a totally dispersed capital with the entry of venture capital funds and the Sevillian savings banks and refloated the company with a complete restructuring of its production. In 2000 the family was already the owner of 50% of the capital of the company, and with the exit of the funds in 2004 and of the savings banks in 2009, it took full control of the company. "These achievements have been based on forging long-term relationships with suppliers, customers and banks, among others," explains the president. Upon assuming office, Yoldi will therefore continue "working on the path of strengthening current agreements, new alliances, the extension of operations to other products and a new leap in geographic expansion."

In this context, Yoldi will continue to promote the investment plan, which in 2020 reached 25 million euros, in which the acquisition of land in Poland stands out to transfer its current production plan "to new facilities with greater capacity and with greater technological development ”, as well as the commitment to capsule technologies for washing clothes and dishes. For this last segment, they have acquired one of their main allies, Unilever, a factory in France.

“We made a strategic plan, with José Moya still very active, for 2019-2023. We are already in the second part of this plan, and there are several important milestones that have already been met, such as the purchase from Unilever. There we want to make a European center of excellence in machine dishwasher technology. Unilever was already a leader in the market, so they have contributed their experience and the people who are specialists in this area ”. At the moment, Persán is present in Spain, Poland and France. “We have always tried to follow our strategic clients in those countries where they were most established. And the election of Poland comes a bit along that line ”, he explains.

However, the list of countries the company works with is much broader: Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Colombia … Up to 40 countries. "We are manufacturing for the leading brands in the main European countries: in Spain, the United Kingdom, France and Portugal, our clients account for 75% of their markets", clarifies Concha Yoldi.

The president of Persán is also the president of the foundation of the same name, from where she has been working for the last three decades for the labor and social insertion of vulnerable groups, with special attention to the immigrant population. “We were clear from the beginning that what really gives people dignity is employment. Be able to support themselves. The numbers were going very well for us and we thought we had to do something to contribute to job creation. It is a social commitment ”, he concludes.