(BFM Bourse) – Whether for social, ecological or sovereignty reasons, the notion of industrial relocation is now at the forefront of concerns. A boon for smaller listed companies, which participate fully in the revitalization of the local industrial fabric.
The succession of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine seem to mark a turning point in the phenomenon of globalization, by devoting a phase of relocation of the means of production closer to consumption.
From the 1980s, the oldest industrialized countries – Western Europe and the United States – transferred significant production capacities to countries with emerging economies, in Asia in particular. The principle was quite simple, recalls the “Microcap” team of Mandarine Gestion: relocate the production chains to low-cost countries, the latter becoming the factories of the developed world, thus making it possible to fuel global economic growth with inflation. rather limited.
Facilitated by a decrease in logistics costs, this trend has however complicated supply chains, and generally degraded the environmental impact.
The turning point of the pandemic
Since 2020, the grain of sand of the coronavirus has infiltrated this well-oiled mechanism. The disruption of complex supply chains has caused logistics prices to soar, shortages of certain components, and arguably heightened geopolitical tensions.
“This succession of events has therefore prompted us to reflect and forced us to react to our excessive dependence on certain industries, which have turned out to be essential. Whether for social, ecological or sovereignty reasons, the notion of industrial relocation has then become more consensual, pushing governments and companies to speed up”, underlines Mandarine Gestion.
In France, for example, after a relative stabilization of the balance of factory openings and closings in recent years, no doubt already favored by digitization and robotization, 2021 has shown a more marked acceleration in the net creation of factories in the territory. According to industry observatory Trendeo, the past year marked a turning point for French industry. Over the whole of the year Trendeo identified 176 factory opening projects in France (ie 32,000 net job creations and a positive balance of 120 sites taking into account closures). A level that the country had not known for 11 years.
For Mandarine, which promotes two “Microcap” funds (Mandarine Europe Microcap and Mandarine Global Microcap on a global scale), relocations are an excellent opportunity for the smallest listed companies to assert their position. “Often more flexible than large stocks, these small companies have thus been able to adapt to recent disruptions, and are already benefiting, for some, from the growing demand for local production and the major reindustrialization efforts within developed countries”.
Pharmaceutical and industrial groups
Among some of the securities held in these funds, the management company cites the example of Aska Pharmaceutical, a producer of pharmaceutical ingredients, which has just increased its forecasts for 2022 in view in particular of the market shares regained against its emerging competitors, Chinese and Indian. A strategy that Euroapi also intends to pursue on the Old Continent: hitherto a subsidiary of Sanofi, this company is preparing to take its independence from the pharmaceutical giant and convince new European customers anxious to obtain supplies of active ingredients as soon as possible. near patients.
In Europe, this is also the case for Hanza, a Swedish specialist in the assembly of electronic and mechanical products. The SME has thus invested heavily in its production capacity on the Old Continent over the past two years, which has enabled it to capture strong demand from its major international customers and accelerate its growth. In France, Mandarine is particularly interested in Metabolic Explorer, an innovative company that replaces petrochemicals with biosourced products for animal nutrition and cosmetics. Metex is thus deploying several tens of millions of euros in the development of its capacities on the Carling Saint-Avold site, in Moselle, and was recently selected by the State in the “France 2030” plan.
Guillaume Bayre – ©2022 BFM Bourse