Fenzi video interview

Good question. The situation in Italy today is still good, I would say, better than most of Europe, but it's not going in the right direction. So the numbers are increasing and we are holding our breath on what comes next. It seems that the north of Italy, which was hit very hard in spring, is doing better, while central and southern Italy, that caught the virus only from a distance in spring, are more affected. So here in Italy it's happening geographically the opposite of what happened in spring.

Yeah, we, all our plants in the world remained open. The only plant which was closed for a couple of weeks more than the normality is our Chinese plant, because in China each plant had to extend the Chinese New Year holidays for two weeks. Our European and North American plants always remained open. Also here in Italy we were allowed to stay open because chemicals were considered a fundamental industry, and so we were always allowed by the government to stay open. So we did not have any lockdown in our plants. Basically we were able to keep running. Of course everybody who could be placed in smart working was placed on smart working, but you can understand that in an industrial factory you need workers on the shop floor. So in our productions, everybody came to work and it went well. I was very happy and very pleased by the courage of our people, because people continued to come to work. I would say that we were very early in preventive measures. So the first patient here in Italy was on the 21st of February, which was a Friday, and immediately on the following Monday we closed the company to external visitors, we closed the locker rooms, we closed the canteens, we gave face masks. So we were very early in being careful, and I think that gave the confidence to our people that coming to work was safe. Our absenteeism in that period was virtually nothing, and I can only thank my people for such dedication and devotion.

It was very unstable and very different from market to market. So the first quarter until the end of March was very busy, and the second quarter in some countries it went to zero because of the lockdowns. So Italy went to zero, UK went to zero, France went to zero, Spain went to zero, while other countries continued almost in a business as usual mood. I'm thinking about Holland, which is where you are, I'm thinking about Poland, and thinking about Germany. So it was good that not everybody stopped at the same time, because that gave us also in Q2, also in the darkest months of the lockdown, some business activity. So it dropped to zero in some countries but it did not drop to zero worldwide, and that was okay to us. Then Q3, I don't know if to say strangely enough, but Q3 is above my predictions. And I don't see much difference in Q3 2020 compared to Q3 2019. So it seems that we are living in a normal world, even now beginning of October, when the news coming especially from some parts of Europe are not good. So today, if I was not listening to the news and only looking at our order book, I would think that the year is a normal year. Yeah, that's very strange, isn't it? It is strange. I think it is a confirmation that our industry was leaving a healthy for the virus, so there is a lot of inertia on which we are leaving. So a lot of what the industry is doing today is based on investment decisions which were taken before the virus. The real question mark, or the dark cloud at the horizon, is what will happen when a lot of these old investments will be completed. So sometimes there is a comparison between 2008-2009 and 2020. The difference I see is that in 2008-2009 a lot of projects stopped in between. I remember seeing buildings that were put on hold with construction at 50%. Today I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing that everything which was running continues to run towards completion. And I don't see, especially in the commercial part of the industry, I don't see too many groundbreaking ceremonies. So the question is: once the ongoing projects will be completed, what comes after? It is true that the governments are trying, in most of Europe, to understand that construction is a fundamental pillar of the general economy. So governments are trying to put incentives to construction. One example that we have in a few countries is incentives for renovation of buildings, renovation of windows towards more performing energy windows. So I trust that that will help. Of course we know that the glass does not come immediately after an investment decision, so I'm still kind of worried that we might see a gap in the next months for what has not been decided or for the investments that have not been started in the last weeks or months. The present is good. The future, I'm always optimistic, but it's not so easy to be 100% optimistic nowadays.

Yes. Let's say if we talk about energy saving, I would say that the company in our group which is more active in that is our spacer company Alu Pro. So Alu Pro was a company totally dedicated to aluminum spacers for insulating glass, but the name says it all: Alu Pro. And today aluminum is just a small part of our business because we have totally reconverted ourselves, almost totally, to warm edge spacer. And we started with warm edge almost 20 years ago, and in these 20 years I cannot even think of how many new products and how many more performing products we brought to the market. And last but not least, last year when we acquired the Thermix business unit from Ensign. So we see that business growing, and it will continue to grow because the trend towards more performing insulating glass and more performing windows is unstoppable. And I think we can all be optimistic about it because more performing means at the end of the day a better environment first of all, and it's also a help for the industry because special products typically bring with them better margins compared to standard and cheap products. So the insulating glass was the classic 4-12-4 or 4-16-4, which was two glasses of two float glasses of four millimeters and an aluminum spacer of 12 or 16 millimeters. That is that, and the fact that that bat is dead or almost dead, I think is good news for everybody.

First of all, I have to say thank you, because I can only thank our customers for the support and for the long relationship we have. I always say that not everybody buys from us, but when somebody starts buying from us, it is always for the long term, and this we really appreciate. At the same time, the message that I want to deliver is a message of optimism. So we are all worried, especially now because the news are not good, also from Benelux. Only yesterday we know that Brussels shut restaurants, bars, sorry. So there's enough to be worried, but we must remain optimistic. The world will go ahead as always, and we'll go ahead also this time. So we should never lose our confidence that this is a temporary problem. A bad problem, a painful problem, it brought a lot of sorrow of course, and unfortunately many people have lost their life or have lost their beloved, but we will go through it. So mankind and business will go through it. So let's remain optimistic. You know that we have a big plant in the Benelux, in Bilford, and so we feel very close to our Dutch and Belgian customers and to your part of the world. And the news are not good, but we are optimistic. We must be optimistic. It will not be an easy autumn or an easy winter. We all will have to give up something, a bit of sociality, we probably will not be able to do what we like to do. But I think these few months will be the last effort, and from spring 2021, possibly earlier, we can start looking forward and coronavirus will be only a bad memory from the past.

You're probably right.

Thank you for your time.