History
Louritex company was created through the continuity of an older existing company called Matos & Frade Lda, which was founded in October 1968 by the two partners António Félix de Figueiredo Frade and António Amâncio de Matos. The old company Matos & Frade Lda functioned at an old building at the centre of Lourinhã, manufacturing ploughs and agricultural equipment.
After 6 years of work, in 1974 the old company received a new partner, Luís Alberto Figueiredo Frade. Then the company Louritex, Lda was created, with all the three partners. From that date on, and due to the bad conditions of its old facilities, the company decided to start building the new headquarters on the property that it exists today.
In 1979, starting in its new facilities the company increased the range of production with new areas like industrial and forestry equipment. Louritex started to supply all the rippers for the main importers of tractors to Portugal, like for example, Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Fiat.
These products kept the production at their natural rhythm and the growth of the company until the year 1989, where a strong economic crisis in the industrial and forestry sectors created a difficult situation for the company. Because of this, and after a research on different sectors, the company decided to start the production of machinery for scrap recycling. The shears and balers produced by Louritex include a high performance in production because of the high standards in electronics and hydraulics. In 1995 there was a change on the companies’ board where the partner António Amâncio de Matos left the partnership and five new partners entered, all sons of the founders of the company. Today Louritex is really a family company with the main partners being brothers, and all of their sons.
Also after 1995, the company started to export the recycling products particularly to the UK. All these changes in products and markets took Louritex to the need of creating new buildings and working conditions to fulfil the responsibilities with agents and specially with clients. The company has invested in new machine tools to increase the production of the factory and also the creation of two new buildings with an area of 4.000Sqm.
On the last years Louritex is exporting its products to different and demanding markets such as German, Dutch, UK, French, Brazilian, Australian, Antilles, Polish and Azerbaijan.
Always with a mind set on the quality and reliability of its products’ production, Louritex signed a commercial contract with one of the biggest and more quality hydraulic component supplier Parker. This contract will ensure to Louritex the quality of hydraulic components and will ensure to our clients the speed in replacement of spare parts, using the Parker agent’s network worldwide.
In 2003 Louritex built a new building with 2,100Sqm only for cut and preparation of steel components from raw material (such as steel plates). Today the company works in an area of 20,000Sqm that are included in a total area of 120,000Sqm that are, indeed, Louritex properties. We produce high technology equipment that include sophisticated electronics and hydraulics components, long distance maintenance, (we can control, check and repair the machines through a cable connection, from our factory to anywhere in the world). Due to the investments that our company has made on the past few years, all of our products are manufactured in CNC machines which will ensure high standards in quality.
Due to the technologic capacity, innovation sector, and a young and dynamic team, Louritex, Lda feels capable of supplying high quality equipment to the most demanding markets as far as production and reliability goes.