Activities And Businesses
The company’s main business is the production and commercialization of wood boards for furniture and interior architecture, which represents more than two thirds of its sales and is managed through the Wood Boards Business Unit. The other company Business Units are considered to be synergic to the Wood Boards Business Unit.
Wood Boards Business Unit
The Wood Boards Business Unit is MASISA’s main business and commercializes wood boards in Latin America as well as in different countries in the rest of the world. Its main products are: MDF wood board, particle wood board and OSB wood boards. The company has an installed capacity of 2.6 million m3 annually for the production of wood boards.
MASISA has 9 wood board industrial complexes in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico, all of which have ISO 14.001 and OHSAS 18.001 certifications. Similarly, the company has the ISO 9.001 certification –or it is undergoing the process to obtain it – in all its markets.
During 2007 an MDF line was added in Cabrero, Chile, with an annual capacity of 340,000 m3 and it is mainly focused on the external market.
All the MASISA wood boards have the European E-1 certification for the low emission of formaldehyde.
Retail Business Unit
In Latin America, MASISA has a competitive key advantage: its important distribution network configured through the local sales outlets called Placacentros MASISA.
The Placacentros have been an innovative and successful format, with a strategic importance for MASISA. They have the mission of being the specialized chain store for the small and medium size furniture manufacturer, preferred by its customers and suppliers in all Latin America.
The Placacentros are commercial outlets that form a distribution network that operate under a similar concept to a franchise with the same brand format. As of December 31, 2007, the company had a network of 324 Placacentros outlets distributed in 10 countries in Latin America.
Solid Wood Business Unit
The strategic role of the Solid Wood Business Unit is to add value to forest products, generating residues, which is the main factor of production of the wood board business. This guarantees competitive supply to our plants and generates synergies for the joint operation and administration of industrial complexes.
MASISA commercializes sawn wood products supplied from pine and eucalyptus plantations, and high quality value added products, being a relevant player the MDF moldings, finger joint moldings and solid wood doors.
The Company has a sawing capacity of 700.000 m³ annually for the production of sawn wood, in 3 complexes in Brazil, Chile and Venezuela. In addition, it has re-manufacturing plants in which value is added to the sawn wood and MDF wood board from our Wood Boards Business Unit. All the plants and industrial complexes have ISO 14.001 and OHSAS 18.001 certifications. MASISA strengthens its market position and its industrial assets through the intermediation of sawn wood products, being one of the main players in this business sector in Chile.
Forestry Business Unit
The strategic role of the Forestry Business Unit is to supply the MASISA’s industrial Business Units – on the short and long-term – an adequate fiber balance, at a competitive cost and maximizing the company’s economic value of forestry investments. This Unit is focused on developing and maintaining forests with quick
growth species under economic, social and environmental sustainability criteria.
The Forestry Business Unit administrates equity of 243,000 hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations, distributed in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. It has 64,000 hectares of reserve and protection areas of natural forests. The forestry handling of plantations is carried out under a diversification strategy. Thus, this Unit has generated a forestry mass of first quality genetic material, whose products are focused on different industries and markets, whether due manuto the type of species, different qualities or the size of lumber pieces, etc. This portfolio of highly demanded forestry species (Pine and Eucalyptus), added to the application strategy of different handling schemes in order to produce different types and quality of lumber pieces, allow
strongly decreasing the market risk of the assets of the Forestry Business Unit.
On its on-going search for generating value, the company has started small-scale pioneer projects for the sustainable handling and use of the native forest in association with third parties. This allowed the handling operation to be selffinanced.
As a result of this action, this equity increased its economic value. The company will continue to classify, within its native forest equity, the surfaces that are susceptible to continue being handled in the manner described above.
All plantations have the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001, certifications with the exception of the plantations of Forestal Argentina whose renewal is currently pending.
The percentages to take advantage of the tree and the use given to each one of its parts depend on the particular characteristics of the handling of the forest from which it is extracted.