New owner wants Curtiembres Fonseca to regain lost dynamism
The new figurehead of one of Argentina’s biggest and best known tanneries is new to leather manufacturing, but far from new to the leather industry.
At the start of 2021, leather manufacturing group Curtiembres Fonseca announced that Raúl Zylbersztein had taken over as its new owner and company president.
The tanning group, which has been in operation for more than 65 years, has its base in Lanús in Buenos Aires. It has the capacity to process 5,500 hides per day and makes finished and semi-finished leather, principally for the automotive market, but also for footwear, accessories and furniture upholstery. Around 95% of the group’s leather goes to export markets. In 2010, it won the award for the Americas in the first Tannery of the Year programme.
Taking over a major tanning group represents a departure for Raúl Zylbersztein, but he has a strong connection to the leather industry. Until 2018, he ran his family’s leathergoods manufacturing company, Zylbersztein Hermanos, taking over from his father in the 1980s. He combined his work in the family business with a series of high-profile roles in industry associations.
Between 2004 and 2012, Raúl Zylbersztein was an outspoken president of Argentina’s national leathergoods association, CIMA. During his tenure, he had a public altercation with campaign group Greenpeace over river pollution in Buenos Aires. Mr Zylbersztein said it was unfair of Greenpeace to single out leather for the blame for pollution in the Matanza-Riachuelo river because countless industries had contributed to the problem for more than 100 years. In return, he was subjected to public, personal vilification.
Undeterred, he went on to take leadership roles in two wider business organisations, the General Confederation of Argentinean Business (CGERA) and the Economics Federation of Buenos Aires.
Zylbersztein Hermanos specialised in small leathergoods and high-end luggage. It achieved success in important export markets such as the US and some European countries. Rising costs, linked to the company’s insistence on using skilled, artisan labour and to Argentina’s complicated economic environment, made it impossible for the company to continue. It closed its doors in 2018.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, Raúl Zylbersztein worked on his bid to take over Curtiembres Fonseca. He secured the support of some important meat companies in Argentina, plus the backing of finance experts. He has also reached an agreement for the day-to-day management team at the tannery to continue working there.
He has said his aim is to help Curtiembres Fonseca recover some of the dynamism he fears it has lost in recent years and to guide it into new markets.
Image: Raúl Zylbersztein. Credit: CGERA.
