You are Elisabet Pujadas-Riera, 54, third-generation CEO of Teixits Pujadas. On Friday at 22:40, Hall 2 — the main loom hall — burned to the ground. Insurance covers the rebuild. It does not cover the wages of the 240 weavers who will have no work for the next fourteen months.
The situation
Teixits Pujadas has woven mid-market technical and home textiles in Mataró (Maresme, Catalunya) since 1948. Your grandfather Joan founded it; your father Salvador ran it for thirty-six years; you took over in 2019. €38M revenue, €2.6M EBITDA last year, 310 employees total. 240 of them are weavers in Hall 2. Most live within four kilometres of the plant. Eighty-eight of them have been with Pujadas for more than fifteen years.
The fire started in the dyeing-line auxiliary motor at 22:40 Friday. By 03:00 Saturday, Hall 2 was structural ash. Hall 1 (technical-textiles, 70 staff, smaller) is untouched. Insurance assessors arrive Monday; the policy covers building reconstruction (~€18M, 14 months) and replacement of looms (~€11M, 9 months for delivery from the German manufacturer). It does not cover wages during the shutdown. Spanish ERTE (temporary layoff) law allows you to suspend the weavers at 70% of unemployment-base salary for up to 12 months, paid by the state — but with a hard "no firing for one year" clause attached.
Saturday morning your CFO David Saurí calculates: if you pay nothing beyond ERTE, the firm exits the rebuild with €8M in cash and a 1.4× net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio — solid. If you pay full salary on top of ERTE for the fourteen months, the cash burn is €14.2M and the firm exits with €0 cash, €11M new debt, and a 5.8× ratio that violates your bank covenants. The weavers do not know any of this. Your father, 81, still alive, told the local paper at 09:00 Saturday — without consulting you — that "Pujadas takes care of its people."