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CHILE
Rio Puelo Optimistic for Future Growth
Emilio Pastrian (left) with Jorge Torfan-Bdewi
Most of the leading retreaders in Chile are established family businesses with many years experience in the market. An exception to this rule is Rio Puelo, whose headquarters are based in the coastal resort of Vina del Mar, but whose factory is more strategically located on the outskirts of Santiago.
Rio Puelo was established as a tyre distribution company ten years ago and only started retreading four years ago, but the company has quickly established itself as one of the leading professional retreaders in Chile, manufacturing 11,000 retreads a year, 80% of which made using Marangoni rubber and the remainder with Continental.
General Manager of Rio Puelo is Jorge Torfan-Bdewi, who takes great pains to explain the difference in the way his company approaches the
market. Rio Puelo, a small corporation with four equal shareholders, approaches the
sector the company represents Continental and Michelin. It also sells Continental’s Barum brand, plus three Chinese brands, Superhawk, Triangle and Exmile. In other sectors, Rio Puelo markets the Elf brand of lubricants, Daewoo batteries and also sells trailers from Pravaz. In
addition to the Vina del Mar and Santiago sites, the company operates distribution centres in
lately but insists that investing in the plant has been the right thing to do. “The margins we are operating on are not the same as when they started,” he says, “but we believe the current situation is part of a cycle, so we tr y to provide ver y good service and to have a plan for the future.”
Part of this plan has been to give Emilio Pastrian a dual role within the company. As a result, he now spends part of his time as a business development manager, touring round fleets and explaining the products. Torfan-Bdewi believes this is slowly making a difference. With this in mind, the company has recently achieved success with a large fleet called LINSA. “We are working hard to try and explain the cpk concept to
fleets,” says Torfan- Bdewi, “but it’s often difficult difficult because many are unprepared to listen and believe. However, with
LINSA we managed to increase the mileage on their Continental tyres from 100,000 km to 170,000 and achieved 200,000 km with our retreads on the back. To achieve this we put a technician into LINSA on a full time basis to make sure the fleet’s tyres were
managed in an optimum manner.”
Overall, Torfan-Bdewi is optimistic about the growth of Rio Puelo as a player in the tyre market. “In general our business grew 22% in 2015, and we are targeting similar growth for 2016 and 2017. It is true that the market is hard, but we love what we do. We’ve been creative for 10 years and now we can see the results.”
market with four key products – new tyres, retreads, batteries and lubricants. In the tyre
Talca, Los Angeles and Concepcion.
The company’s plant manager, Emilio Pastrian, is rightfully proud of his modern retread factory. It is equipped with the latest in modern machinery including a Matteuzzi RAS90-E buffer and Matteuzzi builder. The plant is also exceptionally clean, which is something Jorge Torfan-Bdewi lays great emphasis on. “We always tell our clients not to tell us when they are coming to visit, because we want them to understand that the plant is always as clean as this,” he says.
Torfan-Bdewi admits that the market has been challenging
Emilio Pastrian and his team inside the Rio Puelo factory
26 Retreading Business