It was born with the recovery of Democracy in Spain, in 1976, and became one of the pioneering companies in providing machinery and diverse equipment to the then incipient golf sector in this country, which barely had 60 golf courses. Julián Lara, its founder, had an accurate vision -even in the choice of the place where the business birth would take place: Marbella- when he anticipated the boom that in the following years would lead this sport in Spain. Riversa lives a great present and faces a promising future.
This company is a benchmark not only in the golf industry, but also in green spaces of all kinds, from sports facilities to recreational areas, both privately and publicly owned.
A key year for Riversa was 1979, when it obtained the distribution of the American company Toro for Spain. “It was an important milestone,” recalls Julián Lara, “which made us think about expanding nationally and, over the years, made us leaders in the green spaces sector in our country. In the golf industry, Riversa is the oldest company in Spain: “When we started”, says its founder and president, “there were others, but they disappeared over time, and others were created”.
After gaining Toro’s trust, Riversa obtained the national distribution of other prestigious firms in the sector, including Club Car, a brand of electric vehicles mainly for golf but also for other sectors, such as hotels, airports, industry, for short-distance mobility. “It is a brand that has also made us grow a lot and of which we are also very proud,” he says.
-How has Riversa evolved over the years?
-Over the years we have been growing and expanding our presence in Spain and we currently have four offices in different parts of the country, with the head office in Marbella. We created the Madrid delegation and later those of Catalonia, which also covers the Balearic Islands, Levante and the Canary Islands, which is based in Tenerife. With these delegations and more than seventy employees, Riversa covers and serves the entire Spanish territory.
Already well established in the green spaces market, in recent years we have expanded our market range and have entered with other brands and products in other sectors such as forestry, with machines for pruning, pruning elimination, compost, etcetera. We have also entered the automotive market for municipalities, specifically with the Mega and Club Car brands. We are covering the automotive needs within those cities where there are reduced spaces for traffic in the center. These are vehicles with electric motors to avoid pollution.
We have also opened markets in something as different as the recycling of all types of waste from green spaces and forest origin. We update ourselves as a company always looking for the needs of the market.
-How has Riversa overcome the different economic crises during these forty years?
-It has not been an easy task to overcome them and to complete so many years, but focusing on the last one, we can say that it was a tough crisis but we were able to overcome it thanks to the consolidation of our company in the market, to the financial and economic support we had accumulated over the previous years and to a major corporate restructuring. Today, fortunately, we can say that we are almost out of that last crisis and, as I told my employees when the crisis began, we are going to work hard and all together to try to come out of the crisis stronger, and, without a doubt, we have done so.
-What does the future look like for the company?
-These forty years have served us and serve as experience to think of a promising future for Riversa. I am its founder and I am already at an age when I think more about retirement, but the future of the company is guaranteed since we have been concerned for some time to ensure that transition. We have very prepared people in the company who have been with us for years, who know perfectly all the gears of the company, who are very integrated and identified with the company and, above all, I have my son, who has been in the company for fifteen years, who prepared himself at the university and in doing his masters, and working in companies abroad and in Spain before joining Riversa. I can say that I am very proud to know that there is a continuity thanks to this team headed by me and especially, for the future, by my son Sandro.
This strength and security makes us think about new challenges, new markets, expansion not only nationally but also internationally. We created a company in Portugal, Irrimac, which covers the whole country and which is, after a few years, obtaining very good results, and we are thinking of expanding our experience and our company to other international markets, to Latin America, specifically to Brazil, where we already have quite advanced negotiations, and probably also to Argentina, in collaboration and association with a company that already exists there… We are now in full evolution, in full development of new markets, without forgetting obviously that our base is in Spain and that it is here where we have to continue making every possible effort to serve our customers by giving them the best service, which has always been our goal.
-How have you seen the evolution of the golf sector in these four decades of Riversa’s existence?
-When the company started, there were about sixty golf courses in Spain (today, there are more than 400), and specifically in Andalusia there were a dozen, and in Marbella, six. Aloha had just been inaugurated, and the two courses in Guadalmina, Río Real, Los Naranjos and Las Brisas had been open for a few years. Torrequebrada started with us, forty years ago… That’s what we had then.
We have lived through the entire development of the golf industry in Spain. It has had its brilliant moments, when very interesting and very good projects were developed, and the evidence is that they are there and that time has rewarded them and treated them well, and also, it must be said, there were other less fortunate projects that, perhaps because of the place, perhaps because of the project or perhaps because of the investment, which were not the most suitable, are the ones that time has punished the most. During the last years of the crisis, golf, both tourist and social golf, has held its own very well, it has been able to adapt to the circumstances… It is true that they have invested little, since there was not much to invest either, but they have been able to manage the situation very well, and proof of this is that today these courses, all over Spain, are recovering the position they have in the international market.
And if I refer to Andalusian golf, as I know golf throughout Spain, it is clear that Andalusian courses are the mirror in which other regions look at. It is the flagship of Spanish golf, especially from the tourist point of view, and it is closely followed in this aspect by golf in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. They are the three most desired golf tourist destinations, and where we have the greatest volume of business. In the rest of Spain they are also doing quite well, taking into account that they do not have the climate or the tourist structure enjoyed by the three aforementioned areas.
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