Milan, 25 January 2022 – Carlalberto Guglielminotti, CEO of NHOA Group, took part in the “Italian Mid Cap conference 2022: supply chain, raw materials and value chain – A new perspective” organized by Mediobanca. Supply chain, raw materials and inflation were the issues at the heart of 4th edition of the conference which was held virtually on 19-20 January and saw 27 listed Italian mid-caps unveiling their growth plans to 90 international investors.
On 20 January Guglielminotti participated as speaker in the panel “Energy transition – exponential growth vs supply chain”. During his speech, he talked about NHOA’s path, born from a spin-off of the Politecnico di Torino and Milano, today an innovative player with three Global Business Lines in three fast-growing sectors for energy transition and sustainability: NHOA Energy, dedicated to energy storage, Free2Move eSolutions, the JV with Stellantis, that designs e-mobility products and services, and Atlante, which is developing the largest EV fast and ultra-fast charging infrastructure in Southern Europe, enabled by renewables, energy storage and 100% grid-integrated.
Getting to the heart of the topics, Guglielminotti spoke of the global difficulties in terms of shortage of raw materials, highlighting how, for a year now, we have been managing two convergent phenomena but with radically different roots: following the growing demand for electric vehicles, there has been an increase in the demand for raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, necessary for the manufacture of batteries. The demand, although sustained by the mining industry, has nevertheless been met with a chronic delay also deriving from an ever-increasing demand for semiconductors necessary to produce microchips. This is a clear effect of the pandemic, where the demand for IT equipment grew exponentially. In addition, there has been an increase in the cost of the same materials, precisely because of the increased demand, and above all the slowdown of the supply chain.
These factors also affected our supply chain, to which we answered with accuracy, flexibility and speed. On the one hand, we have structured a price hedging that also takes into account the variation in the cost of batteries and critical components. On the other hand, we have reinvented all industrial processes, for example moving the production of some of our components directly on site. And, finally, thanks to a team of talents we have been able to manage everything with unparalleled speed”.
Guglielminotti then concluded underlining the role of TCC, NHOA’s new shareholder, that gives the company privileged access to the Asian supply chain.