FOV yesterday
FOV, Forniture Orafe Vicentine, was born in 1960 in the world of Vicenza’s goldsmith tradition.
At this time in Vicenza there’s a boom of the goldsmith sector. New laboratories are born everyday and as a meeting point between the laboratories’ offer and the factories’ demand companies like FOV emerge.
FOV is founded by the Italian-french Michele Rinaldi, previously a technician for the Swiss company Tous Diamand, specialized in diamond cutting machines. Rinaldi comes to Italy in the Sixties, proving himself to be skillful in grasping the potentialities of the diamond cutting machine business and therefore decides to move. He first founds FBMO, supported by Ompar, diamond cutting machine production company.
FOV come from this experience and the owner vision of the market.
In 1979 in via del Progresso in Vicenza the first warehouse opens. It counts only 12 employees which will grow to 30. FOV commercializes heavy machinery, like diamond cutting machines, presses, hammering presses for chains, furnaces and rolling mills but also tools and consumables.
From the start FOV offers a wide range of materials to answer the demands of a vibrant and constantly evolving market.
In a short time it grows from 5 to 200 clients per day. 20.000 products in stock and up to 20 diamond cutting machines per month are sold overseas.
At the time there’s such a high demand for goldsmith machinery that the delivery of a hammering machine could take up to two years, but FOV is able to deliver up to 500 hammering machines in a year.
FOV soon expands its branches: there’s one in Bassano Del Grappa, a city famous for its chain tradition, one in Milan and in Arezzo. But the business travels beyond the Italian boundaries, going to North Africa, North and East Europe, down to South America.
There come the Nineties and the goldsmiths suffer a sudden crisis that brings FOV to seek Legor strong leadership. In 2007 there’s the merging of FOV with Legor, leading FOV to become an important branch of Legor Group.
The long tradition of FOV products couldn’t be erased or forgotten, such a milestone of the Italian goldsmiths, particularly in Vicenza, has not been shut off, but it keeps going forward holding up its name.
FOV now
FOV is constantly evolving and the year 2017 has been particularly vibrant and meaningful, signed by the important transfer of FOV Shop from its historical Vicenza location to Legor Group S.p.A. headquarters in Bressanvido (Vicenza). Several updates have taken place: for instance the implementation of an automated warehouse and unification of the warehouses, the strengthening of our sales network in the territory and, last but not least, the development of a web platform for e-commerce.
There’s no room to stop.