MONDRAGON reaffirms its full confidence in the co-operative model

Furthermore, as the leading Basque industrial group and the tenth in the ranking of top Spanish companies, it has ratified its commitment to business and employment. The Group today accounts for 3.2% of the Basque Country’s GDP and 7.4% of its industrial GDP. What’s more, it provides 3.5% of all employment in the Basque Country and 8.4% of jobs in industry. The Group records 12.2% of all exports made by local companies, with the Corporation making  10.7% of the industrial investment in the Basque Country.

Fagor Electrodomésticos currently accounts for 8.1% of the co-operative group’s overall turnover.

These figures confirm the cooperative model’s strength and effectiveness within a context of widespread crisis involving heavy job losses. MONDRAGON is currently made up of 289 companies, of which 110 are co-operatives, providing employment for 80,321 people -42% in the Basque Country; 40% in the rest of Spain and 17% abroad-. Of these, 36,963 are working in the Industrial Area, 39,839 in the Retail Area, 2,486 in the Financial Area, and 1,033 in the Knowledge Area.

The Group ended 2012 posting an overall turnover of  €12.9bn, of which €4bn was generated abroad, where 14,000 people are working in 105 production centres. MONDRAGON’s investment was in excess of €331m.

The Group’s commitment to research and innovation is confirmed by fifteen technology centres and the 2,096 researchers employed in the Corporation, which invested €160m in R&D&i in 2012. It is currently involved in 91 international projects related to R&D and owns 564 patent families.

This line-up of self-sustaining and legally independent co-operatives, grouped together in the MONDRAGON Corporation, is linked by a series of solidarity mechanisms that strengthen each one of them as part of a whole. These solidarity mechanisms have been in place since the start, being used to support the launch of the cooperatives’ internationalisation and innovation projects, back the development of new business activities, and provide assistance for co-operatives in difficulties.

MONDRAGON boasts leading companies in highly diversified industrial sectors, such as machine tools, vertical transport, consumer goods, industrial components, automotive, consulting, and construction. In Fagor’s case, the brand is not only associated with the household appliance sector, as it is also the trademark of sundry industrial activities that are at the cutting edge in sectors such as the car industry, electronic components and capital goods.

The Group’s pledge to education and training is enshrined in the University of MONDRAGON (MONDRAGON Unibertsitatea), which specialises in management and business innovation, complementing its fifteen technology centres that employ more than 1,000 people.

Strategic commitment

MONDRAGON has established a road map for the four-year period from 2013 to 2016, with the main challenge being to transform the business fabric, accelerating the process of transition towards sectors and markets with greater value in order to generate profitable and sustainable businesses and value-added employment.

This goal will revolve around five key strategies for the future: tailoring the size of operations to  the market to ensure they are competitive; internationalisation; innovation for promoting new activities in forward-looking sectors; inter-cooperation between Group companies in pursuit of comprehensive solutions and, finally, reinforcement of the co-operative model.

The Corporation reaffirms its full confidence in the co-operative model and its commitment to driving its companies’ competitiveness in the global market, conveying a message of assurance and responsibility both to its own people and to society at large.