UFI Filters Group has been awarded the “Panda d’Oro Award 2024”, one of the most prestigious recognitions within the 13th edition of the “Panda d’Oro Gala Awards”, the traditional event organised by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China (CICC) with the support of the Embassy of Italy in China, the Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai, and with the cooperation of the Italian Cultural Institute of Beijing and Shanghai. The main theme of this year’s ceremony was ‘Marco Polo – 700 years later’, celebrating the symbol of international relations and highlighting Italy’s historical importance in cultural and economic exchanges with China.

UFI Filters Group received the highest honour, the “Panda d’Oro Award” the iconic award for the Italian companies that invested the most in the Chinese market during 2023.

This is the third time in its history that UFI Filters has received this important accolade, the first being in 2010 for growth in the Chinese market and the second in 2021 for innovation.

Giorgio Girondi, Chairman of the UFI Filters Group comments: “The first time was in 2010, when the award was in its first edition. At that time, UFI was ranked first and other recognitions went to FIAT, Costa Crociere and Bulgari. The first Chinese company on Italian soil was Huawei, which was still unknown to us, and we smiled when we wondered who it was, as it only had 450 employees in Italy at the time. Today, however, it is the colossus we all know and has over 97,000 employees in R&D and $9 billion in net profit. Perhaps it was better not to laugh and realise what China would become’. After UFI, Ferrero and Ferrari among others were awarded in the following years.

The ceremony was held at the W Hotel in Shanghai on 15th June and represented an important meeting point for the Italian and Chinese business community. It was attended by the Ambassador of Italy to China, Massimo Ambrosetti, the Consul General of Italy in Shanghai, Tiziana D’Angelo, the Director of the Italian Trade Agency (ITA/ICE) for China and Mongolia Francesco Pensabene, the President of the CICC, Lorenzo Riccardi, and second-level inspector of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Liu Taiqiu, Director of Shanghai Foreign Investment Development Board, Xue Feng, Deputy Director of the Office of Hongkou District People’s Government of Shanghai, Zhang Jingyun.

International Liaison Department, Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai, Li JieUFI Filters has been honoured with the “Panda d’Oro Award” thanks to its continuous investments in the country of the dragon, where this year it inaugurated its seventh plant, UFI GREEN in Jiaxing. This is the first industrial site of the Group in China completely dedicated to green technologies, for which it has invested a total of 45 million euros. It is a plant that will run entirely on green energy, where UFI GREEN will develop and manufacture advanced battery thermal management systems and innovative filtration products. These products will be available for electric vehicles (cars, trucks, tractors, excavators, railways and aircrafts, etcetera). The second phase of the plant’s development will be a joint venture with Sinopec, the largest oil company in the Far East, with a planned investment of around 34,000 square metres dedicated to the production of membranes to extract hydrogen from water and membranes to produce electricity from previously separated hydrogen, aiming to provide environmentally sustainable solutions.

Giorgio Girondi, President of the UFI Filters Group comments: “We are very proud to receive this prestigious award for the third time in our history. We arrived in China in the early eighties, with a lot of drive, selling turnkey plants to the Chinese government. We were the first industrial filter manufacturer in the country. Now we have inaugurated our seventh industrial site, which is set to expand its production capacity in the coming years, becoming one of the main centres in China for the production of technologies for electric vehicles and components for the production of green hydrogen”.

UFI Group, a leader in filtration and thermal management as well as technologies for the development of hydrogen mobility, celebrate in Xiuzhou Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, the opening of UFI GREEN, its first industrial site fully dedicated to green technologies in China.

The new factory, the 21^st of the Group, covers 42,000 square meters and is outfitted with cutting-edge production lines and R&D Lab center, employing in total 650 people. With an overall investment of 45 Mil Euros, UFI GREEN will develop and manufacture advanced thermal management systems and innovative filtration products. These products, available for electric vehicles (passenger vehicles, trucks, bus and off-road), hydrogen & fuel cell technologies and industrial filtration, aim to provide more sustainable and efficient solutions.

The products include chillers, liquid cooling condensers, coolers, electric axle heat exchangers, coolant-to-coolant heaters, dry receivers, accumulators, and integrated compact battery thermal management modules for new energy vehicles and energy storage applications.

At full capacity, UFI GREEN will reach the production capacity of 9.4 million units. Additionally, the annual capacity of new innovative filtration media will reach 3 million square meters.

In the second phase, UFI GREEN will be also focused on hydrogen & fuel cell systems as a key development area. The Group has a deep commitment to environmental protection and firmly believes that hydrogen energy is one of the key directions for future sustainable development.

UFI Filters continues to strengthen its structure with the appointment of Paolo Cataldi as the new General Manager of its Aftermarket Business Unit. He joins the leading international group in filtration, thermal management and technologies for the development of hydrogen mobility, taking the lead for the aftermarket globally.

Paolo Cataldi, 55, a graduate in Economics and Marketing from Italy’s University of Bari, has more than 25 years of management experience and a strong background in the automotive aftermarket. Cataldi has a profound knowledge of the aftermarket, having held various strategic positions over the years for leading companies in the spare parts business, from sales, product and marketing to managerial leadership roles and business unit management, both for the Italian and international markets.

Paolo Cataldi, new Aftermarket Business Unit General Manager of the UFI Filters Group, says: “I would like to thank Chairman Giorgio Girondi and UFI Group CEO Stefano Gava for their trust. I am honoured to join a leader in the European and international automotive aftermarket sector. At a moment of great transformation, challenging goals await me, which I will carry out with the support of a professional and well-established team.”

Stefano Gava, CEO of the UFI Filters Group, comments: “We welcome Paolo Cataldi to our Group. We are confident that thanks to his solid experience he will be able to take the UFI and SOFIMA Aftermarket business to new heights. Paolo has the important objective of consolidating and strengthening our market leadership in Italy and to drive other countries in the same direction. UFI is aiming for double-digit growth in the next three years worldwide.”

• Nine out of ten teams present in Formula 1 racing use UFI Filters filtration systems to guarantee reliability and safety for the single-seaters
• Each car is fitted with around fifteen UFI filter elements, which perform essential functions in the fuel and lubrication circuits of the combustion engine, in the hybrid component and the hydraulic systems of the brakes, and in DRS and steering
• Experience in Formula 1 and other motorsport categories, such as the WEC and MotoGP, makes UFI Filters an indispensable partner for manufacturers in the transition to new forms of mobility

UFI Filters, a leading international group in the field of filtration, thermal management and technologies for the development of hydrogen mobility, has cemented its position as a top producer of filtration systems by supplying nine of the ten teams competing in the 2024 Formula 1 season, which starts on 2 March with the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The announcement is a prestigious recognition of the technologies developed by the High-Tech Division of UFI Filters, founded in 1999, and for the company, which has seen a continuous series of successes in the motorsport’s top category since 1978.

In Formula 1, UFI Filters does not limit itself to providing teams with oil, air and petrol filters. The complexity of today’s racing cars also demands up to fifteen filter elements in a car. In total, UFI produces around 8,000 such F1 filters annually.

Tailor-made solutions

For Formula 1, each filter is tailor-made for the needs of the different teams, with customised solutions provided in terms of size and materials used (which can include medical aluminium, carbon fibre and titanium). Their design requirements are the result of a co-design process between technicians in UFI Filters’ High-Tech Division and the individual racing teams. Often, during the course of the season, updates and modifications to the filters are also requested by the teams, based on the developments gradually introduced in the cars.

The filters used for the cars can be subdivided, according to their location.

• Filters for combustion engines are located in the air intake, in the fuel supply and lubrication circuits. These are high-tech filters, which must not only trap dust and chips, but also any contaminants that may form in the special petrol used in Formula 1. The engine oil circuit also requires adequate protection: in addition to the main filter, there are secondary filter elements, and several ‘last chance filters’, which act on the recovery pumps.
• The filters in the hydraulic circuits play an essential role in driver safety. Their presence in the systems that preside over the hydrodrive, the activation of the mobile rear wing (the DRS) and the braking circuit are fundamental.
• The hybrid system with which the single-seaters are equipped, involves the presence of an energy-storage battery, the temperature of which must remain within an optimal range: dielectric fluids are used for its cooling, the filtration of which is guaranteed by UFI Filters.

Not just Formula 1

UFI Filters has accumulated a great deal of experience in motorsport, starting as early as the second half of the 1970s. Today, UFI Filters filtration systems are present not only in Formula 1, but also in many other motorsport categories. In particular, in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) they are on board the Ferrari 499P, the winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours 2023, and the 296 GT3, as well as Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini Hypercars. UFI Filters also supplies the heat exchanger for the front electric axle of the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH, which increases the efficiency and reliability of the system. This is proof of the advanced technologies developed by UFI Filters, which is not only a leader in filtration systems, but also plays an significant role in Thermal Management, an area of increasing importance due to relevance of e-axle temperature management.

UFI Filters are also used by all Formula 2 and American IndyCar single-seaters built by Dallara.

In motorcycling, UFI Filters supplies its products to MotoGP (for Aprilia and KTM), Moto 2, Moto 3 and Superbike.

Italian pride

“It was 1978”, recalls Giorgio Girondi, Chairman of the UFI Filters Group, “when UFI Filters won its first Grand Prix in Great Britain with Carlos Reutemann’s Ferrari 312 T3, inaugurating a long series of triumphs. Since then, through sacrifice, dedication and passion, we have been able to develop customised solutions for the needs of nine out of ten Formula 1 racing teams. In light of this, we are continuing towards our goal of winning all the teams within the next two seasons. This is a source of great pride for our company, which is increasingly perfecting the advanced technologies that will also characterise the important transition which the automotive industry is undergoing”.

UFI Filters has named Stefano Gava as its new group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), succeeding Rinaldo Facchini. The Board of Directors of UFI Filters, a leading international group in the field of filtration, thermal management and technologies for the development of hydrogen mobility, met on 16 January to approve the appointment.

Gava, born in Vittorio Veneto (Italy) 43 years ago, was previously COO (Chief Operating Officer) EMEA of UFI Filters. The Italian national graduated in Economics and Finance at the University of Udine. In 2015, he joined UFI Filters as Group Chief Financial Officer, based in the Shanghai office in China, where he was able to count on many years of experience working in finance for companies in the architecture, engineering and construction sectors in China and South-East Asia.

Gava has occupied a number of top positions within the UFI Group, and in 2020 he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer Americas, based in Detroit, before moving to the group’s Italian headquarters to assume the role of COO EMEA in 2022. Last year in June, Gava was recognised as a 2023 Rising Star by the industry publication Automotive News Europe.

Stefano Gava succeeds Rinaldo Facchini, who has been CEO of UFI Filters Group for the past 10 years, having held increasingly important managerial roles within the group’s Administration and Finance units since 1986.

Giorgio Girondi, Chairman of the UFI Filters Group, says: “UFI Filters is well recognised for actively promoting the most talented among us, thanks to mentoring and “cross-fertilisation” programmes that aim to enhance the group’s experience in different regions and contexts, while developing strong leaders. The appointment of Stefano Gava makes us proud because he represents the best example of our people-centred corporate culture. I would also like to thank Rinaldo Facchini for having contributed to the company’s growth in relation to the future of mobility. It is now Stefano’s turn to continue along this path, which I am sure he will be able to follow successfully”.

Stefano Gava, the new CEO of the UFI Filters Group, comments: “I would like to thank Chairman Girondi and the Board of Directors for their trust. I am honoured to receive this appointment and to take up the baton in leading the company through the challenges that the ongoing technological transition is setting us. Regarding this transformation, I consider it fundamental to continue investing in the technological innovations that will support the future of the company, and at the same time, integrate the new sustainability models promoted by our customers”.

“Innovation is part of our DNA, and it is the distinctive trait that helped our development in the market until now”, with these words, the UFI Filters Group Chairman, Giorgio Girondi, opens the exclusive interview with Automobile & Parts, one of the most popular Aftermarket magazines in China, by outlining UFI’s contribution to a more sustainable future

There’s a broader global attention to emission containing policies, as testified by the agreement signed by global leaders in Paris in 2015, and the plan set forth by the EU to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and progressively increase the share of renewable energies and energy efficiency before 2030.

In this foreword, UFI Filters – global leader in the filtration, thermal management and hydrogen filtration technology fields – is increasingly committed to supporting cars and heavy vehicle manufacturers, by developing solutions for new electric vehicles (NEV – New Energy Vehicles).

The interview shows how the drive of a constantly evolving market, such as the Chinese one, with more accentuated evolutionary timeframe, compared to the European market, along with the innovation that is an integral part of the UFI Filters Group’s DNA, is the winning combination that marks UFI Filters’ success in both China and worldwide.

The Chinese market has always been an important benchmark. The quick development of new vehicles and technologies provides the chance to work in a scenario that moves with extreme rapidity. Innovation – an integral part of UFI Filters’ DNA – is the answer to this market. “Being one step ahead” is one of the values the Group invests in, to provide solutions that anticipate future demand. With its GLOCAL approach (local production with a global perspective), UFI Filters can serve local customers, by developing its products in one of the 3 Innovation Centers located in Italy, China and India, and spreading know-how in the other production branches throughout the world, for global coverage.

According to the Chairman, the future for mobility without harmful emissions into the atmosphere passes through hydrogen, and this is exactly what UFI Filters has focused on.
For over five years, it has focused on searching for and developing technologies that can be installed on any kind of vehicle, both heavy vehicles, cars, and light commercial vehicles. The Advanced H2 brand was created to identify those products for hydrogen mobility, such as the UFI Adsorber cathode air filters, which ensures the best operation of the fuel cell, and the deioniser, which deionises the cooing circuit coolant.

The UFI Group has been present in China for over forty years; and today, it can count on 7 industrial sites, the last of which is about to be opened in the Zhejiang province, in Jiaxing, and will be entirely devoted to developing products for NEV.

Chairman Giorgio Girondi concludes “The future will be greener. We are entering the new era of hydrogen technology, and our Group is ready to guide this process with five years of unfailing devotion. Get ready while I’m about to unveil revolutionary innovations for hydrogen mobility. Stay tuned with UFI Filters’ world, as our momentum is just beginning!”

Read the complete interview here:

• UFI Filters is original equipment in the Lamborghini Revuelto: the first Lamborghini HPEV plug-in hybrid super sports car
• Latest-generation oil module for the new Lamborghini V12 engine
• High chemical stability; reliability in contact with water and fuel and extreme filtering performance thanks to FormulaUFI.Micron

UFI Filters, a leader in filtration and thermal management as well as hydrogen filtration technologies, presents the latest generation oil module for Lamborghini‘s new V12 engine, which is fitted to the Revuelto, the first plug-in hybrid HPEV (High Performance Electrified Vehicle) super sports car from the ‘Casa del Toro’.

Announced to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the ‘Casa di Sant’Agata Bolognese’, Revuelto is the first Lamborghini super sports car built on the innovative LB744 platform to be equipped with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. This incorporates the full power of the high-performance 12-cylinder internal combustion engine with three high-density electric motors powered by a lithium-ion battery.

UFI Filters is the original equipment supplier for the Revuelto’s powerful V12, which uses the latest generation oil filter, based on the FormulaUFI.Micron specification. The complete module features an aluminium body and heat exchanger and a filter cartridge made of synthetic fibres, which offers high chemical stability even under difficult conditions, such as the stresses experienced by a high-displacement engine, while offering the highest reliability in contact with water and fuel. Filtration efficiency is ensured by very small fibres, which help maximise the life of the filter element and reduce pressure drops, which helps ensure that the oil circuit always has the maximum flow of lubricant for the super-performing V12.

Giorgio Girondi, Chairman of the UFI Filters Group, comments: “Innovation is part of our DNA, and we prove it by writing the history of hybrid super sports car technology. The future is an integral part of our vision and constantly pushes us to overcome limits. With our know-how and R&D investments, we create cutting-edge solutions even for the most innovative plug-in hybrid applications.”