Christmas Party 2019 – Allied International Warehouse
Castel San Giovanni (Piacenza), Italy – December 20th
In the run-up to Allied Group’s 20th anniversary the company presidents focus on two decades of history and celebrate the addition of PHOCÉENNE, PIPING TECHNOLOGIES AND SAIC to the Group. But a new challenge is already waiting in Saudi Arabia
In the familiar glittering gazebo erected inside the Castel San Giovanni warehouse, this year elegantly enriched with black and gold furnishings, ALLIED GROUP hosted nearly 700 guests for its traditional Christmas get-together. New guests of this great corporate family included representatives of the three newly-acquired French companies: PHOCÉENNE, PIPING TECHNOLOGIES and SAIC; a further sign of the Group’s vitality despite the uneasy situation on international markets. As usual, there were plenty of mayors, persons of authority and other prestigious guests including Federico Ghizzoni, former CEO of Unicredit and board member at Nexi and Bocconi University. The forthcoming 20th anniversary since the foundation of ALLIED GROUP was an opportunity for the two presidents, Valter Alberici and Marc Herzstein, to retrace the steps of its unstoppable growth in just two decades, with its conquest of increasingly large shares of the domestic and international markets and the acquisition of firms often in difficulty, for which Allied was a safety net able to safeguard hundreds of jobs, meaning the livelihoods of entire families. Alberici started out in 2001 with one employee (Maurizio Pilla, who still works for the company) in a 10x10m office, but now ALLIED INTERNATIONAL employs 860 people in Italy, of whom 366 in Val Tidone, 342 elsewhere in the province of Piacenza and 152 in other provinces. Outside Italy, Allied has 265 employees, of whom 180 in Europe and 85 outside Europe. Marc Herzstein’s ALLIED NORTH AMERICA has over 1200 employees. «Our strength – Alberici told guests – is that we never rest on our laurels, but we keep working hard to be ready to take on whatever challenge the market offers us next». The two presidents then revealed what the next challenge was. «A new alliance with RAFID GROUP – explained Alberici – a major industrial group in the Gulf, for an ambitious project aimed at the production in Saudi Arabia of some of the most in-demand items for the local oil & gas industry, with Saudi Aramco leading the demand».
The project will be carried out through a joint venture between three Allied companies and the Saudi group – whose chairman Abdul Aziz Al Mandil was a guest at the Christmas Party along with some of his colleagues – giving rise to new companies whose factories are now under construction but will soon be operational: AASIA TECTUBI, AASIA GIEMINOX and AASIA SIMAS.
As in previous years, there was also the opportunity to support the Heart Lottery in aid of Progetto Vita, to which we refer in the Social Responsibility section.
