Through the eyes #17
Wednesday 09 November 2022
This week we take you to Italy to discover the seventeenth story from UniCredit's 2021 Annual Report. The family-owned business Dott. Gallina, founded over sixty years ago in Turin, is well-known around the world for the production of building materials. UniCredit helped them in making a first step towards ESG transition by fully subscribing a €14 million 7-year mini-bond, testament once again to our vow in facilitating capital markets access for SMEs and our enduring commitment to sustainability. Read this success story!
The Piedmontese company Dott. Gallina has an ambitious goal: to convert an abandoned, historic industrial site into a new type of factory. The “Transparent Factory” will use innovative automated production technologies and blend cutting-edge research with respect for the environment, employee welfare services, and benefits for the community and wider territory.
Founded over sixty years ago in Turin, the family-owned Dott. Gallina is active in the production of polycarbonate sheets and systems for the building industry, as well as technical profiles for the automotive industry. The company initially grew through its work for the automotive sector before expanding into the production of building materials.
Thanks to continuous investment, the development of a method that allows the design and manufacture of the production lines to take place internally, and a willingness to look beyond borders, Dott. Gallina is today present in Europe, Asia and the United States, realizing 70% of its turnover in forty countries outside Italy.
The company launched a sizeable investment plan in 2021, aimed at increasing competitiveness, and therefore growth, through a stronger commitment to research and development combined with greater attention to environmental protection and the promotion of a welfare system for employees. The final objectives of the three-year plan are to increase turnover by more than a third and create more than a fifth of new jobs.
The first step in Dott. Gallina’s ESG transition is the 100,000 sq m ‘Transparent Factory’, which is being built with an investment of €27 million and without the consumption of any new land, instead redeveloping a former industrial site using the best available technology in terms of innovative production processes, energy efficiency, and overall quality of the working environment.
To help the company complete this project and see its plans underway, UniCredit fully subscribed to a €14 million 7-year mini-bond issued by Dott. Gallina to finance the factory’s construction. The instrument itself is sustainability-linked, with a mechanism that ties its interest rate to the achievement of precise objectives in terms of reducing energy consumption and improving employee access to corporate welfare services.
“I am particularly pleased to have concluded such an innovative financial transaction with UniCredit, which enhances both the green and social commitments of our company”, commented Dario Gallina, CEO. “The loan is for the construction of a new production plant which rehabilitates a site with a great industrial history where Comau was born. UniCredit has proved to be a very constructive financial partner as regards issues of sustainable growth – supporting us with an investment that will allow us to combine innovation, productivity, efficiency, better working conditions and reduced environmental impact”.
The subscription of the mini-bond issued by the Piedmont- based company also represented an important milestone for UniCredit. In addition to being one of the largest sustainable mini-bonds issued in Italy to date, it was the hundredth mini-bond structured by the bank in favor of small and medium-sized Italian companies (SMEs) – testament once again to UniCredit’s leadership in facilitating capital markets access for SMEs and its enduring commitment to sustainability.
Discover more stories from our 2021 Annual Report here: