The contribution of President Antonio Gozzi: «Thanks to our American friends for the loyal cooperation and the business culture they have passed on to us»
December 21, 2020. Starting this morning, the stars and stripes flag stops flying next to the Italian one in San Zeno Beam Mill’s entry hall.
After nine months of amicable but articulated discussions, we have come to the conclusion of the financial closing process that states the end of the joint venture between Nucor and Duferco in Duferdofin, leader player in Italy in the production of beams and profiles for construction. These have been 12 remarkable years of productive collaboration with the first US steel producer, years in which our company has grown from a technical, financial and economical point of view thanks to the contribution of our American partner. Our only regret is that in this period we were unable to achieve the results that Nucor legitimately expected from the JV.
Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic and the consequent cut in Nucor’s overall investment budget didn’t match with our willingness to proceed with the already deliberated and approved investment in SanZeno new rolling mill. This caused one of those situations of strategic divergencies that sometimes happen, even among the most collaborative partners.
For Duferco it has been an honor to be Nucor’s partner during the past 12 years and it allowed us to understand and appreciate even more the American industrial culture so perfectly embodied by Nucor’s associates. American capitalism is often only identified with its financial expression and excesses of Wall Street. This is a partial and superficial vision of what American capitalism truly is, one that not gives the right credit to the importance of its industrial values, technology, know-how and competences, organization, size, management approach and a taste for challenges and expansion that American companies exported worldwide.
Loyalty, transparency, pragmatism, focus on results, respect for our people, team spirit, very strong corporate culture is what our American friends from Nucor have thought us over the years, and I believe this lesson will stick in the Duferco of the future. Duferco has always been strongly connected to the United States of America, from its founding to our family heritage, but this experience has strengthened even more our belief of how important and strategic is for Europe and Italy to keep nurturing the Atlantic collaboration, and to work hard to make it thrive. The Atlantic relationship is our natural belonging and an essential element of stability and democracy in such challenging global landscape.
I would like to thank all Nucor’s representative that have sat over the years in Duferdofin-Nucor’s board: R. Joseph Stratman, Rex Query, Richard Wechsler, James Jellison, David Sumoski, Jay Henderson, Chad Utermark, Barry Solomon, Leon Topalian, Jonathan Witherow, Mike Keller, Bryson Trumble.
I want to thank in particular the four men that have over all embodied the genuine spirit of friendship and cooperation that was this partnership for us: Dan di Micco, John Ferriola ad R. Joseph Stratman and Leon Topalian. They all have accompanied the Jv in different but crucial moment, and I believe that it’s also thanks to them that our company can today aspire to become European leader in the beam market.
Grow the core, Expand beyond, Live our culture has been your lesson to us.
We won’t forget it.
Antonio Gozzi
President of Duferco Italia Holding