Companhia União Fabril
Encyclopedia
The Companhia União Fabril (CUF) is a Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

 chemical corporation
Chemical industry
The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials into more than 70,000 different products.-Products:...

 and a part of Grupo José de Mello
Grupo José de Mello
The José de Mello Group is an economic group that has a stable Portuguese shareholder base. It is one of Portugal's biggest corporate groups...

.

History

The company was founded by Alfredo da Silva
Alfredo Da Silva
Alfredo Da Silva is a painter, graphic artist, and photographer, known for his abstract expressionism. He came to international prominence in 1959.- Biography :...

 in 1871 and managed by his descendents, including José Manuel de Mello
José Manuel de Mello
José Manuel de Mello , was a Portuguese businessman who founded the conglomerate Grupo José de Mello. He was the heir of an older industrial conglomerate, Companhia União Fabril , which had been founded by his grandfather Alfredo da Silva. José started to work for CUF until the Carnation Revolution...

 as a family-run business conglomerate. CUF was one of the largest and most diversified Portuguese corporations from the 1930s until 1974. With its core businesses (cement
Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

, chemicals, petrochemicals, agrochemicals, textiles, beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

, beverages, metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

, naval construction, electrical equipment
Electrical equipment
Electrical equipment includes any machine powered by electricity. They usually consists of an enclosure, a variety of electrical components, and often a power switch...

, oilseeds, insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

, banking, wood pulp
Wood pulp
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. Wood pulp is the most common raw material in papermaking.-History:...

, tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

, mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

, etc.) and corporate headquarters located in mainland Portugal, but also with branches, plants and several developing business projects all around the Portuguese Empire
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

, specially in the Portuguese territores of Angola
Angola (Portugal)
Angola is the common name by which the Portuguese colony in southwestern Africa was known across different periods of time...

 and Mozambique, CUF was for many years the largest employer and exporter of Portugal.

The company had also its own sports club
Sports club
A sports club or sport club, sometimes athletics club or sports association is a club for the purpose of playing one or more sports...

, founded as a truly works team
Works team
A works team is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business. Sometimes, works teams contain or are entirely made up of employees of the supporting company.-Africa:...

 in 1937. It was located in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

's industrial suburb
Industrial suburb
An Industrial Suburb is an incorporated community, created near a large city, that is zoned for primarily industrial sources...

 of Barreiro
Barreiro
Barreiro is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of and a total population of 79,047 inhabitants. It contains the town of Barreiro.The municipality is composed of 8 parishes , and is located in Setúbal District....

, and was called Grupo Desportivo da CUF. The club was a major contender in the main Portuguese Football Championship but was disbanded and replaced by G.D. Fabril
G.D. Fabril
Grupo Desportivo Fabril is a Portuguese sports club established as Grupo Desportivo da CUF in 1937.-History:Established as Grupo Desportivo da CUF Grupo Desportivo Fabril is a Portuguese sports club established as Grupo Desportivo da CUF (G.D. CUF, with CUF standing for the company Companhia União...

 due to the 1974 military coup. After the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...

 military coup in April 25, 1974, and the fall of the Estado Novo regime that ruled the intercontinental country from 1933 to 1974, CUF entered in collapse. Many of its companies were forcibly nationalized
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 by the communist inspired National Salvation Junta
National Salvation Junta
The National Salvation Junta was a group of military officers designated to maintain the government of Portugal in April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution had overthrown the Estado Novo dictatorial regime. This junta functioned between 1974 and 1976, following a communiqué of its president,...

, and the dismembered company fell into decline, losing all of its splendour and importance. After the turmoil of the Carnation Revolution from 1974 to 1976, its communist inspiration fade away from 1977 to 1978.

In 1979, the founding family (the Mellos) resumed its business activity in Portugal and would proceed to found the Grupo José de Mello
Grupo José de Mello
The José de Mello Group is an economic group that has a stable Portuguese shareholder base. It is one of Portugal's biggest corporate groups...

 (José de Mello Group). Step by step, the CUF was revived with the acquisition of several chemical industry assets in the country from the 1980s to 1997, when it was in position to buy Quimigal (founded after the forcible nationalizations as the chemical company of the State) in the privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...

 of that company. During the 1990s and 2000s, CUF's main industrial assets were located in Estarreja where the company produced aniline
Aniline
Aniline, phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic compound with the formula C6H5NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the prototypical aromatic amine. Being a precursor to many industrial chemicals, its main use is in the manufacture of precursors to polyurethane...

 and nitrobenzene
Nitrobenzene
Nitrobenzene is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5NO2. It is a water-insoluble pale yellow oil with an almond-like odor. It freezes to give greenish-yellow crystals. It is produced on a large scale as a precursor to aniline. Although occasionally used as a flavoring or perfume...

. Also in the 2000s, the company started to develop innovative projects in other fields. The nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...

 company Innovnano was founded in 2003 by CUF in Aljustrel
Aljustrel
Aljustrel is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 458.3 km² and a total population of 9,940 inhabitants.During the Roman era, Aljustrel was known as Metallum Vispascense....

. Its main facilities, including state-of-the-art research and development center and manufacturing plant, were scheduled to be relocated to the Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...

's iParque in 2012.
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