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IN the course of your life you come
across few people who will be indelibly
printed on your memory.
I don’t mean if you’re lucky enough to
meet some of your sporting or musical
heroes. I mean the man or woman in
the street. You know. The one who
enters a room and there is a presence
around them.
A person that other people look up to,
listen to. Not out of fear, but out of
respect.
Step forward Signor Battista Faraotti,
founder and president of Fainplast, a
plastics compound manufacturer in
Ascoli Piceno, a rather pleasant little
city in Le Marche region of Italy.
It took me – despite the language
barrier – just a few minutes to
understand why his employees put him
in this bracket. He is a self-made man.
He loves, clearly, his home city. He
supports a wide range of initiatives
involving the community – and sport
features heavily in his company’s
promotional activities.
His employees are looked after. They
have modern facilities, a gym, and a
flexible approach to a working
environment that works for the
company, management and the
ground-floor operatives. In other words,
he invests his time, money and effort in
❍
❍
A warm welcome awaits at
the Fainplast plant in Ascoli
Piceno
Dateline
n
1993 – Fainplast founded and
starts production in Assisi
n
1996 – The company moves to a
new plant in Ascoli Piceno
n
1999 – The covered areas are
doubled and new office premises
are built
n
2001 – Production of halogen free
compounds is started
n
2004 – Medical compounds pro-
duction begins
n
2006 – Production of crosslinkable
compounds starts
A passion for plastics
the people who work for him and the
surrounding area in which they live.
I had been invited to spend three days
on a fact-finding, factory-touring visit to
discover everything about Fainplast. I
saw everything from the testing stage –
and there’s a lot of that at the site on an
industrial estate on the outskirts of the
city – through to the final production.
These compounds – a staggering
620,000 tonnes each year – are then
shipped off to customers who make
everything from electric cables, for
pipes and profiles extrusion and for
shoes and medical devices.
Fortunately everyone at the company
had gone out of their way to make this
as un-technical as possible. To put it all
into layman’s terms, if you like.
And it is a clear testament to the owner,
his shrewd management and his board
that has led to a record-breaking year
for the company founded just 18 years
ago.
Since then they have become a major
player in the market, the biggest in the
region and – despite what has been a
tough time in the industry – one of the
largest
plastic
compound
manufacturers in Italy.
In 2010 the company increased its
turnover by some 45 per cent to
€71.8m – up from €49.5m the year
before. Some would argue that a
refreshing attitude to investing in new
production lines might just be the
reason for that success.
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