Latest news with #Funes
Int'l Business Times
09-05-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
How A Mexican OEM Appliance Manufacturer Turned A Supply Chain Crisis Into A Nearshoring Opportunity For US Brands
As global shipping costs surged and delivery timelines stretched thin, U.S. manufacturers and retailers found themselves at a crossroads. For many, the once-reliable flow of goods from an eastern country had turned into a logistical headache, riddled with delays and escalating expenses. The COVID-19 pandemic shattered the illusion of supply chain stability, and the ripple effects continue today. Freight costs, particularly for large items like home appliances, have at times eclipsed the cost of the products themselves. Retailers were left with few options: pass those costs to consumers, accept shrinking margins, or rethink how and where their products are made. "We're seeing a possibility of a similar chaos to 2020," says MEXIPC CEO . "The rising geopolitical trade tensions have led to supply chain instability, meaning companies are forced to realign their sourcing to remain competitive." It's a difficult pill to swallow, especially as consumers expect reliability and affordability – demands that are increasingly difficult to meet when manufacturing and shipping rely on sources that stretch halfway around the world. That is why MEXIPC, a Mexican OEM/ODM appliance manufacturer, has taken strategic steps. Based in Mexico and just a few hours' drive from the U.S. border, MEXIPC specializes in producing electrical home appliances for major brands. But what sets the company apart isn't just its proximity; it's its proactive, future-forward response to the very supply chain crisis that had paralyzed so many others. "When the freight crisis hit during COVID, we were distributing appliances under our own brand across Mexico," the CEO states. "Shipping costs skyrocketed. The freight cost per washing machine nearly matched the price of the product. At that point, we had two choices: either exit the category or build something better. We chose the second path." That 'something better' is a fully operational, vertically integrated factory, designed to survive any supply chain disruption and positively thrive within it. MEXIPC's facility includes in-house plastic injection molding, allowing them to manufacture appliance housings and components internally. This investment gives them end-to-end control over quality, timelines, and cost – three pillars U.S. clients are now desperate to secure. "Injection molding is a big investment," shares Funes. "But having that capability in-house means we don't rely on third parties. That's how you prevent delays, avoid quality issues, and stay in the driver's seat when markets shift." Their strategic location compounds those benefits. By operating within driving distance of the U.S., MEXIPC reduces lead times drastically, compared to imports from eastern countries. U.S. clients no longer need to plan purchases six months out, lock cash flows, or wait for ocean freight to navigate clogged ports. Instead, they can work with MEXIPC for just-in-time manufacturing that responds to real-time demand. MEXIPC Factory MEXIPC is not just audit-ready; it's audit-approved with Sedex, SCAN, and FCCA Audit. The factory meets all requirements for key U.S. clients, including social responsibility, security, and operational audits that are often prerequisites for selling through major retailers. "For a lot of suppliers, those audits take years to pass. It's not just paperwork; it's your layout, your labor compliance, your safety systems," Funes explains. "We've done all that. So when a brand is ready, we're ready." This turnkey approach has already proven attractive. Since June 2022, MEXIPC has been working with leading U.S. customers, starting with OEM/ODM manufacturing. Now, with policy pressures mounting, customers are expanding their businesses with MEXIPC. While many companies are scrambling to relocate operations to Mexico amid geopolitical tensions , Funes cautions that success in the region takes more than proximity. "Setting up a factory in Mexico is not easy," he says. "You have to understand the labor laws, the business culture, and the supply chain. We've been in this space since 2012, and we've grown by knowing both the culture and the category." That experience shows. MEXIPC's team is entirely Mexican-based, and the company's knowledge of local labor compliance, supplier development, and logistics infrastructure gives it a major edge. That is why, rather than outsourcing packaging and secondary components, the company invests in its own packaging capabilities while deepening relationships with local suppliers in Mexico. Its strategic decision-making has given the company the strength to remain stable. Funes further confirms, "By controlling more of our supply chain and staying rooted in Mexico, we insulate ourselves and our clients from global volatility." MEXIPC's leadership team, all residents of Mexico, brings a nuanced understanding of the local business and regulatory environment, giving the company an edge in navigating challenges that would trip up less experienced operators. Soon, the company will expand into new product categories, building on its foundation in appliances to offer even broader solutions to partners seeking to localize and stabilize their product lines. "Supply chains will always face challenges. But challenges don't always have to mean disaster. They can mean opportunity. That's what we've built MEXIPC on, always turning challenge into advantage," Funes concludes.
New York Times
28-01-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Mauricio Funes, Salvadoran President Who Fled to Nicaragua, Dies at 65
Mauricio Funes, a former president of El Salvador and a one-time television journalist who fled to Nicaragua to escape corruption investigations, died there on Jan. 21, in Managua. He was 65. His death, in a hospital, was announced by Nicaragua's health ministry, which attributed his death only to 'a grave chronic illness.' El Faro, a Costa Rica-based, El Salvador-centered news website, said Mr. Funes had been hospitalized after a heart attack on Jan. 8. Mr. Funes was considered a fresh start for his war-battered country when, pledging to tackle endemic crime and poverty, he was elected as El Salvador's first modern-day leftist president in 2009. But by the time he fled for Nicaragua in 2016, two years after leaving office, Salvadoran prosecutors were looking into the embezzlement of some $351 million in state funds on his watch. In May 2023, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 14 years in prison for allowing the country's criminal gangs, the so-called Maras, to 'strengthen their financial and territorial grip, in exchange for a reduction in the murder rate,' according to El Salvador's public prosecutor. Shortly afterward, Mr. Funes was sentenced to six more years for evading $85,000 in taxes. A year later, in June 2024, he was given an additional eight-year prison sentence for awarding a construction contract for a bridge to a Guatemalan company in exchange for a private plane. He was under five different investigations at his death. The stolen money fueled a lavish lifestyle: a fleet of 15 vehicles, 92 firearms and 'dozens of watches from high-end brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Cartier,' El Faro reported, adding that it had also verified purchases of jewelry, clothing and vacations to Disney World. 'The evidence is massive regarding his behavior,' Ludovico Feoli, director of the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University, said in an interview. 'It's sort of tragic. The moral of the story is that he had the potential to really make a difference. He showed that the left could be as corrupt as the right.' Mr. Funes insisted that his flight to Nicaragua, and the subsequent granting of citizenship to him by its president, Daniel Ortega, in 2019, did not constitute an evasion of justice. He considered himself a victim of a 'selective and fraudulent justice,' he told an interviewer in October. His exile had nonetheless been a steep fall for Mr. Funes, who had been a star of El Salvador's media and had used his television celebrity to vault to his troubled country's presidency. As a broadcast journalist, he angered the country's far-right, U.S.-supported government with his sharp coverage of the Salvadoran civil war, which lasted from 1979 to 1992 and killed some 70,000 people. The government was supported by the country's oligarchs in its fight against leftist rebels, a conflict fueled by El Salvador's longstanding economic inequality. Mr. Funes was sympathetic to the left. A United Nations-backed commission later found that 85 percent of the violence was committed by government forces. Mr. Funes's downfall 'contributed to the discredit of the political parties' in El Salvador, Mr. Feoli, of Tulane, said. 'If you look at what's happened since, it's hard not to draw a line between that behavior and the rise of Bukele,' he added, referring Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's current, far-right populist president who is admired by President Trump. Mr. Bukele has imprisoned tens of thousands of Salvadorans, most without trial. Mr. Funes was a correspondent for CNN in El Salvador from 1991 to 2007. In 1994, he was awarded Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism. Fired by the Mexican-owned Canal 12 station in 2005 for his independent style of reporting, he began preparing for a career in politics two years later, becoming the candidate in 2007 of a leftist coalition that included the historic revolutionary party the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). He won the 2009 election for a five-year term with nearly 52 percent of the vote, defeating the far-right party Arena after its two decades in power and promising reconciliation. But by 2011, on the occasion of a visit by President Barack Obama, the country was still beset by gang violence, including killings. 'The answer is not the prison state, but the social state, whose benefits will reach all sectors of society, ' he told the Paris newspaper Le Monde. Speaking of the gangs, he added, 'Repression, yes, but also and above all prevention.' In a country where remittances from citizens abroad made up a substantial share of the national economy, he told Le Monde, the 'obligation of the Salvadoran state was to insure education and health for all, offering possibilities for people to stay here.' In his first years in office, he partly delivered on his promises, providing school supplies and uniforms, building hospitals and reducing the price of medicine. He made conciliatory speeches, apologizing for the right-wing government's massacres of civilians during the civil war and, in 2010, for the assassination in 1980 of Archbishop Óscar Romero, a fierce critic of that regime. But Mr. Funes soon fell victim to the vice that habitually afflicts his country's leaders, according to El Salvador's prosecutors: corruption. In one month, his credit card spending equaled what he had previously earned in a year, $41,000, according to El Faro. And whatever negotiations he conducted with gangs were ineffectual. By 2015, killings had reached a rate of 100 per 100,000 people, the highest in Central America. Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena was born in San Salvador, the capital, on Oct. 18, 1959, a son of Roberto Funes, an accountant, and Maria Mirna Cartagena, a secretary. He attended secondary school at the Colegio Externado San José in San Salvador, where he later became a teacher, and studied at the Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas, also in the capital, but did not graduate. Mr. Funes became a television reporter for El Salvador's educational channel in 1986. A year later, he went to work for the private Canal 12, where he covered politics, earning a reputation for his interviews with leftist leaders and crusading investigative journalism. A wide following helped attract the attention of FMLN officials. His marriage to Vanda Pignato ended in divorce in 2014. His survivors include his sons, Carlos, Diego and Gabriel; and a brother, Guillermo Funes Cartagena. Mr. Funes's fall from grace perplexed many of those who knew him. 'Over the years I have spoken to some of his closest officials,' the Salvadoran political journalist Oscar Martinez wrote after Mr. Funes's death, 'and when I explored the question of what happened to the great political promise of the postwar period, the answer was as disappointing as the plunder: he was blinded by luxury, vice and waste.'
