A colourful history Russian Coatings Corp

A COLOURFUL HISTORY

Russia’s paint market is fast becoming the largest in Europe in value terms, and Russian Coatings Corp. is a recognised leader within the Russian paints and coatings industry. General director Valery Abramov talks to Industry Europe about how the company is taking full advantage of the growth in the domestic market and how it is coping with increased competition from other European players.

Russia is estimated to have a decorative paint market of 800,000 tonnes per annum and an industrial coatings market of 510,000 tonnes per annum. While potential growth in the decorative sector depends largely on general economic development, the industrial coatings sector is quickly recouping after the crisis of 2009 which hit the automotive and powder coatings sectors in particular. Imports make up around 25 per cent of the country’s coatings market; however, Russian companies are progressively becoming more competitive in their own market.

Since 2009, Russian Coatings has been gradually increasing its production volumes and sales. Last year the company showed positive growth and recorded sales of €110 million, which corresponds to 4.2 per cent growth. The production accounted for 34,700 tonnes of paints and coatings, which constitutes a 7.5 per cent increase in annual tonnage. During first nine months of 2012 it achieved an 8 per cent growth in sales to reach a total of €92 million. According to the Top Companies Report by Coatings World magazine – the only truly global ranking of the top manufacturers of paints, coatings, adhesives and sealants – Russian Coatings Corp. holds 76th place in this ranking.

The entire spectrum

Today Russian Coatings Corp. offers products for both the decorative and industrial segments of the Russian and CIS markets. Mr Abramov says: “We supply paints and coatings for decorative and construction purposes under the brands such as Brite, Premia, Yaroslavskie Kraski and YARKO, which makes up approximately half of the company’s total

production output. The industrial coatings include the anticorrosive product range of ProDecor trademark, Strela trademark for painting the railway vehicles and Linia trademark of road-marking enamels.”

The company produces high-performance automotive coatings under the licence of DuPont and supplies them to manufacturers of automobiles and commercial vehicles within the framework of joint venture DuPontRusskie Kraski (Russian Coatings). Technical support from the JV helps to introduce and adapt new coating materials to the assembly line conditions at new car manufacturers’ plants and at the premises of plastic parts makers. The original equipment manufacturers (OEM) coatings are used for cars, buses, freight transport and trucks.

The automotive refinish materials are presented by the VIKA and GUNTEX ranges. “These new products are a natural extension of the automotive OEM coatings production, which was always our strong point,” Valery Abramov explains. Made from innovative materials, VIKA has already taken a 12 per cent share of the Russian automotive refinish market and the recently introduced GUNTEX brand is scoring highly among professionals.

“Another coatings market sector we cover is powder coatings,” Valery Abramov continues. “The specially built Yaroslavl powder coatings plant – a separate manufacturing area within our company – produces 20 per cent of the total powder coatings output in Russia.”

Last year one of the company’s businessunits, Yaroslavskie Kraski signed an agree-

ment with DuPont by which it acquired the rights to use the Teflon® trademark in Russia. As a result, the company is now able to use Teflon® (DuPont) surface protector technology to design and launch its new decorative acrylic paint, BRITE Hausweiss. Other recent developments from this company include its special solutions for telecommunication towers, bridges and heavy-duty equipment.

Because of this extensive range, Russian Coatings has its foot in a number of industry sectors, including railway transport (for painting of rolling-stock), road building (road and runway line markings), bridge construction, metal construction coating and anticorrosion coatings for all types of areas. “And of course we have a healthy share in our traditional markets of the automotive and refinish industries,” adds Mr Abramov. “The domestic auto-giants like AvtoVAZ, Izhmash, RUSPROMAVTO, ZMA, SEAZ, KamAZ, ZIL, UAZ and MAZ, as well as Rusisa-based plants of global brands such as Toyota, General Motors, Deawoo, Volkswagen and Ford are all among our loyal clients.”

Primary colours of the future

All three Russian Coatings sites are based in Yaroslavl and include two enamel workshops, resin and waterborne coatings workshops as well as the relatively new powder coatings plant. Valery Abramov explains: “We plan serious investment into the upgrading of our existing manufacturing processes and into creating new production capacities, particularly in categories like waterborne and powder coatings.”

The past two years have seen the company increasing its production capacities for metallic enamels (up to 2000 tonnes annually) and installing two manufacturing lines for powder coatings to reach an annual output of 3000 tonnes per year. A new line for production of putties for the construction industry was put into operation. “Our strategic goal is to expand our manufacturing facilities to be able to produce 50,000 tonnes of decorative and 8000 tonnes of powder paints and coatings annually,” Mr Abramov says. “We plan to increase our capacities for powder coatings to reach a production output of 8000 tonnes per year. We are also thinking of specialisation of the enamel workshops so that to make industrial materials (including OEM and refinish coatings) in one workshop, and decorative coatings (water-based and solvent-born) in the other.”

Preparing to celebrate its 175 anniversary next year, Russian Coatings has a solid reputation as a top-quality and dynamically developing manufacturer. More importantly, it looks well positioned to exploit future organic growth in the domestic market, especially in the automotive OEM and powder coatings sectors. n