Christmas Party 2014 – Allied International Warehouse

Castel San Giovanni (Piacenza), Italy – December 19th

Proud of a group that knows how to fight the crisis
Analysis of 2014 by presidents Alberici and Herzstein and vice president Dan Feather:
a positive year, despite the difficulties

“Here is the Italy that works, produces and doesn’t surrender despite the crisis; those television broadcasts that focus on collapsing companies and despairing employees need to send their cameras here to discover the secret of how it is possible, even in such difficult times, not only to survive, but also to progress and face the future with faith”.
These were the words spoken by Gianluca Pecchini, director general of the Italian National Singers football team and guest of honour at the Allied International group’s traditional Christmas Dinner. They express perfectly what the co-presidents of the group, Marc Herzstein (videoconferencing from Houston) and Valter Alberici, together with vice president Dan Feather, had just finished explaining to the 600 guests, employees and associates from all over the world, united beneath the huge sparkling Christmas gazebo put up for the second consecutive year inside the new Castel San Giovanni warehouse.

“We do not pretend that the difficulties caused by the persistent international problems do not exist,” said president Alberici “but thanks to our strategies, coupled with the capabilities, unity and dedication of our employees, we have already shown that we are able to face and overcome them and we will continue to do so, defending our markets shares and jobs”.
Indeed, in 2014, too, as in every year before the crisis began, the ALLIED GROUP companies did not resort to one single redundancy, but actually increased turnover by five to ten per cent compared with the previous year. This happened thanks to a strategy that aims to acquire orders even if profit margins are minimal and at the same time also asks its suppliers to make a sacrifice by keeping supply costs to a minimum.

Marc Herzstein and Dan Feather declared their pride in the group spirit and in the skills of all their employees and in the manufacturing know-how of their factories in Italy. They also congratulated the new managing director of Tectubi Tianjin Fittings, Fanny Fang, who, in just one year, managed a vigorous re-launch of the manufacturing plant operating in the important Chinese market.

The Christmas Dinner then bore witness to Allied’s other significant success on another front in which the group has always committed itself, i.e. solidarity, by reaching a new record of donations in aid of Progetto Vita in the traditional Fundraising Lottery (check out the section on Social Responsibility).

Present at the event were also several authorities, including the police commissioner Calogero Germanà with his second-in-command Maria Pia Romita, the president of Confedilizia, Corrado Sforza Fogliani, the former president of Confindustria Piacenza, Sergio Giglio, the former president of the Provincial administration, Massimo Trespidi, the mayors of Castel San Giovanni, Lucia Fontana, of Pecorara, Franco Albertini, of Caminata, Carmine De Falco and of Nibbiano, Giovanni Cavallini, with his historical predecessor Alessandro Alberici.