- The financing from the EU bank will strengthen the competitiveness of the Basque cooperative by supporting its investments between 2021 and 2024.
- The EIB-financed investment plan will enable Fagor Ederlan to push forward with its strategy for research, development and innovation, digital transformation, and the development of increasingly sustainable processes and products.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Fagor Ederlan, a cooperative belonging to the MONDRAGON Corporation, have signed a €27 million financing agreement to strengthen the strategic areas of innovation, digital transformation and sustainability. Fagor Ederlan, headquartered in Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country, is a world leader in the manufacture of automotive components, specialising in suspension, brake, powertrain and structural component solutions.
The EIB loan will finance the cooperative’s strategic investments, which will be carried out between 2021 and 2024 at its various facilities in the Basque Country. The EIB-financed investments will enable Fagor Ederlan to strengthen its long-term competitiveness and respond to major challenges in the automotive industry as a result of the paradigm shift towards sustainable, electric, shared, connected and autonomous mobility.
One of the sector’s greatest challenges is the commitment of the entire value chain to this new model of mobility and industry focused on the global objectives of decarbonisation and carbon neutrality, where electrification and innovation in more efficient processes and technologies with a lower carbon footprint are the main priorities.
The investments will therefore largely focus on the development of increasingly lighter components — which will have a lower carbon footprint — as well as on the development of new components and systems for electric vehicles. They will also cover the deployment of advanced sustainable manufacturing technologies, leading to greater resource efficiency and more efficient production models.
In addition, the EIB will support the company’s digital transformation, which will contribute to its competitiveness and the creation of skilled employment, one of the cooperative’s key objectives. Fagor Ederlan has 60 engineers working exclusively in research and development at its Edertek technology centre, as well as 400 engineers across its 17 plants worldwide.
Although this is the first operation with Fagor Ederlan, the EIB has already worked with six other MONDRAGON Corporation cooperatives.
EIB Vice-President Ricardo Mourinho Félix said: “We are delighted to be signing this agreement to finance Fagor Ederlan’s research, development and innovation strategy, driving its digital transformation and promoting the use of more environmentally friendly production processes. The EIB is continuing to support innovation in the automotive sector in Spain, having financed and worked with several companies in the sector during the pandemic. This operation once again demonstrates the EIB’s strong commitment to achieving an economic recovery based on sustainability, innovation and job creation, which are the EIB’s priority objectives in Spain.”
Fagor Ederlan Group CEO Juan María Palencia said: “The automotive sector is undergoing a major transformation and the next four years will be key to meeting the challenges this entails. We are very grateful to the EIB because this financing is a sign of confidence in our future project. Innovation and digitalisation are the main drivers of change in our sustainable mobility strategy, with the EIB support enabling us to tackle these projects with greater speed and guarantees.”
Background information:
The EIB Group recently adopted its Climate Bank Roadmap to deliver on its ambitious agenda to support €1 trillion of climate action and environmental sustainability investments in the decade to 2030 and to allocate more than 50% of its financing to climate action and environmental sustainability by 2025. As part of the Roadmap, all new EIB Group operations have also been aligned with the goals and principles of the Paris Agreement since early 2021.
About the Fagor Ederlan Group
The Fagor Ederlan Group is a leading supplier of automotive components. It specialises in chassis, powertrain and structural vehicle components, offering advanced, high-tech solutions across all its product lines. Working with the main automotive brands, its clear commitment to customer service and proximity has driven the group’s international growth. Fagor Ederlan is now a global supplier with 17 plants across the sector’s main regions, including Europe, Mercosur, Asia and North America.
With more than 4 000 employees and 1 900 members, the cooperative is one of the largest within the MONDRAGON Corporation in the industrial segment. Its key priorities are to create cooperative employment and work with the local community.