Fluidra, recognised by the University of Girona as an internationalisation success story

Fluidra CEO Eloi Planes participated in the closing ceremony of the 30 th MBA offered
by the University of Girona by giving a talk on the company’s internationalisation.
Titled “Fluidra, a global company”, Planes discussed what mainly led Fluidra, a
Catalan multinational company that develops applications for sustainable water use, to
become an internationalisation success story.
Planes said: “We are proud to be recognised as a role model. Internationalisation is
one of our strategic pillars. Foreign markets currently generate 80% of our turnover
and allowed us to overcome the decline in demand in European economies”.
Fluidra closed out last year with sales of 592.7 million euros, with 80% of sales
generated by international markets. The company operates in 41 countries through
150 branches and production sites and distributes its products in more than 170
countries through an extensive sales network.
The company has accelerated its global expansion in recent years with the creation of
its Asian and Latin American divisions to drive growth on these continents. Last year
was crucial for Fluidra in Latin America, with the acquisition of Brazilian pool
accessory manufacturer Veico, giving the Group its own factory in the country. With an
estimated 1.4 million pools installed and a market of close to 200 million euros, Brazil
represents massive growth potential for the company and a strategic location for
boosting Fluidra’s presence in Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

Fluidra created a joint venture in China in 2012 to grow its presence on the Asian
market, developing an excellent platform for entry into the industrial fluid handling
markets.
A company with a strong international focus
Eloi Planes spoke about the group’s beginnings in 1969, when his father and current
company president, Joan Planes, created the company Astral de Construcciones
Metálicas together with three other entrepreneurs, thus building the foundation for
Fluidra as it exists today. The company has shown a commitment to crossing borders
and promoting exports from the start, particularly in France and Italy.
Astral continued to expand across Europe in the 1980s, opening branches in Portugal
and England as southern Europe became the core source of the company’s turnover.
Export increased, which in turn led the company to explore new products, new
demands and new market requirements. Astral Export, a company with a structure
singularly designed for exports, was created in response to this growth.
In the 1990s the Group opened branches in the United States, United Arab Emirates
(1995), Turkey and Australia (1996). It also started to produce outside Europe,
specifically in Florida. The turn of the century represented an even bigger expansion of
Joan Planes’ company, with new companies opened in Russia, Morocco, India,
Hungary, Chile, Poland, Switzerland, Mexico, Austria, China, Greece, Singapore and
Bulgaria from 2000 to 2006.