Cerpa, 45-year-old Onda tile maker, files for bankruptcy protection
Tile Wars · markets · · Tile Wars
The Castellón Commercial Court declared Cerpa's voluntary insolvency proceedings with intervention of its management powers. The crisis adds to recent cases at Mayolica, Azteca and Codicer in the Castellón cluster.
The financial crisis sweeping through Spain's Castellón ceramic cluster has a new name. Cerpa, a tile manufacturer based in Onda with more than 45 years of history in the industry, has entered bankruptcy protection (concurso de acreedores), according to the official Spanish Commercial Registry Bulletin (Borme).
The Commercial Section of the Castellón Court of First Instance issued a ruling on March 24 declaring the company's «voluntary and ordinary insolvency», along with «the intervention of the powers of administration and disposition of its assets by the debtor». A court-appointed insolvency administrator has since taken over management decisions and has already filed an initial report with the judge.
A creditor list that mirrors the entire sector
Cerpa's creditors include several financial institutions, raw-material suppliers for the ceramic industry, the Spanish Wage Guarantee Fund (Fogasa), the Provincial Council of Castellón, the Onda City Council and the Mutual Guarantee Society of the Valencia Region. It is the textbook profile of a mid-sized ceramic company dragging treasury tensions after several years of soaring costs and squeezed margins.
Interested parties have 10 days from the official publication date to challenge the inventory and creditor list.
The perfect storm hitting Castellón tile
The Cerpa case is far from isolated. Recent months have seen a cascade of crises across the provincial industry:
- Mayolica (l'Alcora): filed for insolvency, with a possible rescue through acquisition by a Swiss firm that would preserve jobs. - Azteca: now in liquidation following insolvency proceedings and subsequent layoffs. - Codicer (Castelló): has shut down permanently. - Keraben and Saloni: closed final agreements on their respective collective redundancy procedures (ERE) with significant numbers of affected workers and negotiated severance.
The common thread is brutal: an industry that exports more than 70% of its production, caught in multiple crossfires.
Open fronts: tariffs, energy and CO2
The sector's financial deterioration reflects a combination of structural and cyclical pressures that have been eroding income statements for months:
1. Tariff war with the United States, the leading international customer for Spanish tile, which has raised the cost of accessing the North American market. 2. War in the Middle East, with direct impact on energy costs —critical for a gas-intensive production process— and on international logistics. 3. Regulatory pressure from the European Commission, which intends to drastically limit free CO2 emission allowances. For an industry running kilns at 1,200°C, this represents a potential multi-million euro extra cost already being priced in by banks and credit insurers.
Reading for the cluster
The fall of Cerpa confirms that the adjustment is not over. The companies that will survive this consolidation phase will be those able to combine energy efficiency, geographic diversification beyond the U.S., and a healthy financial structure strong enough to last until the demand cycle and energy prices normalise.
The message from Onda is clear: in Castellón tile, it is no longer enough to manufacture well; you have to survive financially in this environment.
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Source: El Periódico del Azulejo