Bruno Bolfo, founder of the Duferco Group, has died

“Today is a very sad day for the women and men of Duferco. Bruno Bolfo, founder of our Group, has left us – the man who brought our projects to life and made us great. He has passed away quietly, in his usual understated and reserved manner, demonstrating his unmistakable sense of understatement even in this final act.” So said Antonio Gozzi, Chairman of the Duferco Group, announcing the passing of Bruno Bolfo, the Group’s founder.

“Bruno was a true legend in the global steel industry. A young and brilliant executive at Siderexport, Italsider’s trading company in the last century, he decided in 1979 to embark on an entrepreneurial venture and founded Duferco in São Paulo, Brazil, together with a small group of colleagues, all from Liguria. ‘A courageous pioneer,’ continues Gozzi.”

“Within a few years, the company grew to become Brazil’s leading exporter, meeting the steel requirements of Asian markets through Brazil’s burgeoning steel industry. The business also expanded in North America and, in the mid-1980s, the company relocated first to New York and then to Europe to capitalise directly on opportunities to source steel from the countries of the former Soviet bloc. However, in the mid-1990s, with extraordinary vision and brilliant entrepreneurial courage, Bruno was among the first to realise that the advent of the Internet was set to reduce the information asymmetries on which trading is based, and he launched a strategy to enter the steel production sector which led us, within a few years, to become, the world’s 34th largest producer in 2004, with an output of almost eight million tonnes a year,” emphasises Gozzi.

“We have plants in Italia, Belgium, France, Denmark, North Macedonia, Russia, the United States, Guatemala and South Africa, with nearly twenty thousand employees. It is a challenging and exciting time: acquisitions, partnerships and massive investments are driving the growth of our family. In Belgium alone, in just a few years, we are investing over one and a half billion euros in modernisation and new facilities. Bruno, drawing on the expertise of the Italian state-owned steel industry – which no longer exists – is rebuilding a management team capable of steering a global and complex organisation. He is doing so with his keen vision, his charisma and a constant focus not only on the business, but above all on the people who work with us,” continues Gozzi.

“Bruno was a kind and charming man, but also tenacious and resolute in his decisions. He had realised that Duferco was now a platform destined to diversify into sectors closely related to and complementary to the steel industry. This is how the partnership and joint venture with the Romeo family at Novamarine came about; this is how we decided to enter the energy sector. With great generosity, in the final phase of his professional career, he facilitated a delicate generational handover that brought Augusto and Vittoria Gozzi to the helm of the Group,” adds Gozzi.