JOMA receives Business Merit Award

The Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha held its 4th edition of the Castilla-La Mancha Business Merit Awards. In Los Yébenes, Mr. Fructuoso López, founder and president of Joma Sport was awarded best family business in Castilla-La Mancha by the President of the region, Emiliano García-Page. This award is the recognition of more than 50 years of business career in the sports sector. Joma is a referent in Castilla-La Mancha as an example of growth,

positioning and expansion, which has led the presence of the company in more than 120 countries.

The purpose of these awards is to publicly recognize those companies that have contributed to the development of the economic activity in Castilla-La Mancha in remarkable and extraordinary ways, serving as an example in their specific fields and contributing to the improvement of competitiveness, with a socially responsible approach during 2019. The awarding of this prize, in its different modalities, has an honorary character, and aspires to recognize particular values and promote the social standing of those who receive it.

The event was attended by members of the Joma Sport Management Committee, the President of the Toledo Provincial Council and the President of the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Government.

Source: El País

EL PAÍS, Saturday 11 January 2020 economía

Joma is on par with the sports giants

The family-run multinational manages a 250-million-euro business from its headquarters in Portillo.

Gender equality in the Joma Sport directive is resolved by biology. Fructuoso López is the founder and president; Marina Arellano, his wife, is the vice president; and the children, José Manuel, Alberto, Fructuoso, Alicia and Marina, are in charge of accounts, textiles, footwear, sales and marketing. From its giant factory in Portillo, Toledo, the family runs the multinational company dedicated to sports and footwear, present in 120 countries.

Even the name Joma comes from the family, formed by the first syllables of their firstborn, José Manuel. The story of the business begins in 1965 with Fructuoso López (Portillo, 1942) -Fortu to friends-, who since childhood was obsessed with being an entrepreneur, with doing things for himself: ‘I didn’t care about the salary.’ In his village he had no other choice but to work in the fields like his father or become a shoemaker, and he chose the latter. He learned the trade, took courses in modelling and when he returned from the military service he established himself: ‘I borrowed 15 pairs of lasts and a Singer machine, valued at 3,000 pesetas (18 euros), which would be deducted from my work making football boots for a client in Madrid’, explains Fructuoso.

He now has 400 employees and six subsidiaries around the world (Mexico, United States, Brazil, Italy, China and Panama) with their own sales staff. An activity summarized in 250 million euros worth of sales for 2019, with a growth of 15%. 70% of this income comes from exports, and of this percentage, 40% from Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Eastern countries, while South America represents 15%. Although the company began with football boots, now sports textiles make more than footwear.

Fructuoso López admits that selling abroad was very complicated. ‘Forty years ago, when I had few resources, I invested in the brand, registering it in many markets. But no one was helping you, you were learning by trial and error. Now with the new technologies it is very easy to reach everywhere, but then you had to look for distributors who trusted you. In this new scenario many distributors have disappeared and we have ended up absorbing them’, he explains. At its facilities in Portillo, several languages can be heard. Joma has a huge exhibition of its products there and a saleswoman explains in Polish to two customers the advantages of its sports textiles and shoes, while next door you can hear another conversation in French. ‘We have salespeople at our headquarters who explain our products in 13 languages,’ he says.

All the products arrive to the Joma factory in Toledo and are then redistributed, whether that be within Spain or to Asia. They are currently expanding the factory, which features huge warehouses and an order sorting system with a capacity of up to 30,000 units per hour. Fructuoso is strongly committed to e-commerce and new technologies.

The dilemma of manufacturing But with Joma, as with the multinationals it competes with such as Nike or Adidas, it does not actually manufacture a single shirt, shoe or ball. Fructuoso Lopez realized that he either had to outsource manufacturing or he would end up having to shut down. First he went to Korea, then to China and Indonesia. As he explains, there are times when prices dictate how things are manufactured. For example, Mexico places a tax rate of 400% on goods coming from China, while Indonesia has no tax at all. ‘We send the design and textiles to our office in China, they send us the model and, if we agree, they start to make the collection’, says Joma’s president.

One of the keys to success over the last 54 years has been their commitment to sports sponsorship. This year they sponsored nine Olympic committees including the Spanish one. They estimate that in Tokyo 2020 more than 20% of the athletes will wear Joma. In the last Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, the Spanish brand sponsored nine Olympic committees, from Spain to Mexico and Portugal, and 18 federations or sports. The colou

red football boots of the footballer Alfonso Pérez; sponsorships of Butragueño, Beguiristain, Martín Vázquez are all milestones of the marketing commitment.

The vision of its founder has allowed it to compete with very strong brands such as Nike and Adidas. ‘You must not face your competition. When you see them coming, you change lanes because every company has to know where it is at all times. We have to make a good, well designed, quality product, be serious and offer a good service and invest in the product instead of focusing only on advertising. For nine years in a row we have been the number one seller of sports equipment in Spain,’ explains López.

In addition, he says, there have been numerous attempts to buy the company. Venture capital firms have approached to buy with 10% and in five years raise the percentage to 40%. ‘We’re family and if we sold the company we’d be breaking up the family,’ the president said.

Debt and dividends

Joma’s debt issue is easily resolved: it does not have any. Logically, they use the typical credit lines to go about their daily business. ‘I’ve never asked for money from banks or friends. All the growth has been with our own money and it continues to be so’, explains Fructuoso López. Joma also does not distribute dividends to his family shareholders. The goal is always to grow the business with the profits it makes. ‘My children have their salary, their houses and are devoted to the company’, says the president. However, the family has its investments, which are of course shared. The founder of Joma was never attracted to financial investments and always opted for assets. Thus, the family has two hotels in Mallorca, owns 40% of the Décimas sports shops and has invested in commercial premises, estates and land.