4 Roca a global company Roca is a world leader in the bathroom space business and a point of reference in design, technology and sustainable development. With its products, the company shapes lifestyles across the world and in different societies. Roca began its activities in 1917 as Compania Roca Radiadores S.A, a company that exclusively made cast iron radiators for domestic heating at its factory in Gavà, near Barcelona. However, the rapid success of new products on the market and its firm desire to grow led it to expand its areas of business with the aim of diversifying its activities. As a result, in 1925 it made its first cast iron boilers and, in 1929, it commenced production of cast iron bathtubs. In 1936, Roca entered the vitreous china sanitaryware sector and, in 1954, it began to make faucets. A second vitreous china factory was inaugurated in Alcalá de Henars (Madrid) in 1962. It was in 1963, with the start-up of an air conditioning machine factory in Sabadell, near Barcelona, that Roca became one of the first Spanish enterprises to enter the emerging air conditioning market. The company’s entry into the tile industry took place in the 1980s. The founding of Cerámicas del Foix, which became a subsidiary company, marked the beginning of the current Tiles business. In 1989, the company bought a sanitary ware factory in Portugal. In line with its growth strategy, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the opening of sales subsidiaries, the consolidation of agreements with market-leading companies and the securing of takeovers and other business alliances. In 2002 Roca began a process of corporate restructuring of the Group to organise the various areas of business into independent companies. To carry out this project, the new parent company Roca Corporación Empresarial S.A. was set up. The restructuring process of the company culminated in 2005, with the sale of the heating and air-conditioning businesses in order to concentrate the corporation’s efforts on the bathroom business, which reached world leadership position in the early months of 2006. Nowadays, Roca is present on five continents and has become a benchmark for progress, strength and excellence. Its broad commercial network covers more than 135 countries, has 77 production plants and employs approximately 21,000 people worldwide. Roca is a wholly Spanish-owned multinational company whose capital belongs entirely to the family group descended from its founders.