Coatings for wood: The new ITALIAN COATINGS Division is launched with the iCO brand

News Infurma15/06/2012
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ICA, one of the leading industrial groups in Europe specializing in the manufacture and marketing of special coatings for wood, is reinforcing its competitiveness on the global market through the establishment of the new Italian Coatings division, which is the fruit of the merger by incorporation of Salchi Wood Coatings SpA, a company that was already 100% controlled by ICA SpA.

The incorporation project makes the most of the synergies between two companies that have played leading roles in the history of wood coatings, thereby boosting the Group's competitiveness. Aside from allowing the Group to expand, the merger also bolsters collaboration between the two separate sales networks, reinforces the presence of its products within international markets - building on the excellent reputation it has garnered in various European countries, including Germany, where it has a sales office in the city of Heek - and enables it to target new territories around the world, particularly emerging countries. All of this will be achieved without overhauling the existing infrastructures or making changes to staff numbers.

Today, the Italian Coatings division employs 70 staff, 59 of whom are based at the facility (located on a 20,000m² site) in Romano D’Ezzelino, in the Italian province of Vicenza.

The new brand

The Italian Coatings division will be marketed with the new iCO brand, which expresses the perfect synthesis between the strength of the Group's longstanding experience and its commitment towards ongoing innovation. It is the symbol of the evolution of a Group with a robust national identity that has what it takes to meet the needs of the market and that is now widening its focus yet further as part of a strategy increasingly geared towards internationalization. iCO is the new brand in the wood coatings sector, which represents the Group's core business.

iCO-brand products are the result of the company's outstanding expertise in this sector, which has been accumulated thanks, in part, to its location within an area that is very much a hub for furniture production. iCO can boast long-standing partnerships with the leading manufacturers in the furniture-making districts of the Lombardy and Veneto regions of Italy.

iCO offers a high level of specialization in products for interiors - specifically for industrial cycles with UV-cured coatings - and the umbrella of ICA Group allows those products to be deployed alongside the entire range of wood coatings.

Thanks to the Group's substantial investment in Research & Development, which for the three-year period 2011/2013 will pass the €9 million mark (€9.3 million to be precise), iCO-brand products represent a qualified, reliable Italian response to the requirements of designers, architects and manufacturers operating in the woodworking sector right around the world, who want to be able to count on high-quality, latest-generation solutions that pay particular attention to matters of environmental compatibility and sustainability.

Indeed, the iCO brand perfectly encapsulates the values of a company that has been certified in terms of its Quality and Environmental policies for years. Since 2012, the existing certifications have been complemented by OHSAS 18001 certification (on occupational health and safety) covering the headquarters in Civitanova and the other Italian facilities.

ICA's main objective is to offer its employees a working environment that is as healthy and safe as possible, eliminating the possible causes of accidents and reducing to a minimum those absences that are due to problems in the workplace.

In addition, in 1995 the European Union awarded ICA's water-based coatings the LIFE mark, thereby providing official recognition of the “durable and sustainable development” demonstrated by the company in its efforts to reduce atmospheric pollution.

The creative concept

iCO Italian Coatings is a trademark registered in Italy that expresses the international focus of the Italian Group and the strength of Italian manufacturing - a distinctive feature of the products in terms of their level of quality and innovation. The entire concept is summed up through an original, modern graphic design.

The letter “i” as in “Italian”, which is graphically differentiated, characterizes the brand and hammers home the intended international pronunciation (“ai”). The “O” is designed to recall the perpendicular view of a tin of paint, thereby reinforcing the identity of the Group, which is a leading manufacturer of coatings for wood, and in particular of water-based coatings.

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