Sira Industrie gives birth to Sirtec by saving the facilities of Ferrara-based Tecopress

'Today is the first day of school for Sirtec'. Valerio Gruppioni, president and managing director of the Bologna-based Sira Industrie, puts a damper on the pressing questions about the future of the new wholly-owned subsidiary into which the assets of the Ferrara-based Tecopress, rescued last July, have been merged, by signing a relaunch agreement with the region and trade unions, which binds the Bologna-based group to rent the company (to be transformed into a purchase within a year) with the reabsorption of 70 employees as early as today in order to reintegrate the entire workforce (141 people) "as quickly as possible", assures Gruppioni. For 20 years he has been at the helm of the family-run multinational from Pianoro, which was founded 65 years ago with the radiator business and has become a world reference (90% of its 160 million turnover is exported) in aluminium die-casting for the automotive industry and has also been active in the production of minibuses for the past year, with 700 employees and nine production sites between Italy and China.

The newco Sirtec makes its official debut on the market today and brings with it half a century of experience and cutting-edge die-casting technology by Tecopress, a direct competitor of Sira, which reached a turnover of 50 million euros in its golden years, but has been in a severe market crisis since the beginning of 2024, to the point of announcing the halving of the workforce at Dosso di Sant'Agostino, in the Ferrara area. "The rescue of the company has been advocated by the regional councillorship for Economic Development and Labour, but beyond the collective value represented by the safeguard of human and entrepreneurial resources of the Emilian territory, the operation is a piece that fits well with Sira Industrie's development strategy, the return to 50 million in turnover is a plausible objective," assures the president, who is courageously investing in green public mobility, to offset the shadows and swings hovering over the automotive sector and ride the conversion from thermal to electric, already playing a leading role in aluminium and light alloy die casting.

Tecopress, a diecasting foundry for the production of components, in fact boasts a plant that has been totally renovated after the 2012 earthquake, 'with highly advanced technologies, machinery with a higher tonnage than ours, and well-trained personnel, and we are studying new investments to be made in Ferrara, also taking advantage of the Transition 5.0 Plan,' anticipates the president of Sira Industrie. Which next November will be in Rimini for IBE-Intermobility and Bus Expo, to present the first range of electric minibuses under 8 tonnes built at the headquarters in Pianoro (where the production of Modena-based Sitcar, itself taken over in 2023 by the court auction, has been moved). While the possible involvement of the group in a joint venture with Maurizio Stirpe, Maurizio Marchesini and Nicola Benedetto for the rescue of Industria Italiana Autobus seems to be a chapter closed and not to be reopened, on 3 September the group will again be the protagonist at the crisis table at Mise, while in Bologna there will be pickets in front of the IIA plant to demonstrate against the announced transfer of 70 workers to Flumeri.