Unilox Industrial Corporation
Unilox Industrial Corporation
Unilox Group is involved in the manufacture and trade of PVC chemicals; marine supplies and equipment such as anodes, propellers, and transmission gears; engineering repairs; fertilizers; and lately cricket farming.
Origin Story / Overview
Describe your business in a sentence.
Unilox is an industrial business, practically all B2B, serving a diverse range of local Philippine Industries from Plastics, Shipping, Commercial Fishing, Mining, Cement, Paint, Rubber and most recently Agriculture. Unilox makes and supplies many of the essential industrial products most people never see, but that help keep everything from batteries and plastics to ships and factories working.
Introduce yourself.
NICO: I am Nico Paradies, the eldest son of Bobby and Martha Paradies, a second generation working family member of Unilox Industrial Corporation. Unilox was founded in 1974 as an offshoot of a battery manufacturing plant. Over the past 52 years it has grown to be a diversified collective small group of companies in the Chemicals, Marine, Engineering, Construction and Agricultural business.
BOBBY: I'm Bobby Paradies, a fourth generation family member. I started and managed Unilox as a subsidiary of ACO in 1974 and ended up acquiring it after a 3,4 years during which time I left the family business and went on my own. Unilox started as a manufacturer of lead oxides for the paint and bettery industry and as a smelter of scrap lead. Most of this business has been discontinued and has instead developed into what has been earlier mentioned. Unilox is a wholly owned enterprise of the Robert Paradies Family. The company today is run and managed by eldest son Nico Paradies.
What inspired this venture?
BOBBY: Myself and other executives of ACO formed the Company in 1974, as an undisclosed subsidiary of ACO. During the first few months, operations were not profitable. As a result, top management felt the business was too small and not worth the executive's time that needed to be spent on it. Plans were started to close down. I felt otherwise, as I could see that things were staring to turn around. So I made the difficult decision of buying out ACO's interests, which meant I had to leave being an employee of the family business. Negotiations on the buyout were held with Louie Aboitiz, the CEO then. It was tough going as one would expect with Louie. But with the intervention of Eddie Aboitiz we finally arrived at an agreement. This was in March 1976.
What do you hope younger family members learn from your story?
NICO: Working in a family business can be incredibly fulfilling. Growing up, I was always inspired by the success stories of our Aboitiz family. At one point, I even imagined that I might apply to work there someday. In the end, I found that same sense of purpose in our own family business. There is something very meaningful about building on what the generation before you started, while also finding your own way to contribute.
BOBBY: Decisions to leave the family business must be considered very carefully because once you leave you cant go back.
How can our family best support your business?
NICO: If you own a yacht, give me a call. I've got a propeller with your name on it.
Lessons & Advice
What principle has shaped your success?
NICO: I believe suppliers are extremely important for our business —sometimes even more important than customers. In the Philippines, I’ve seen many companies treat their suppliers poorly. At Unilox, we try to do the opposite: treat suppliers as long-term partners, take care of the relationship, and build trust over time. In several of our niche businesses, the right strategic supplier is the key component that makes the business successful.
BOBBY: It is important for success to be good at organizing.
Advice for the next generation.
BOBBY: Don't start a business unless you're good at numbers and accounting
Image Gallery (click to zoom)
Speed Round
Walk us through a slice of your routine.
NICO: I can’t say I have a very fixed routine. Most of the time, I’m at our head office in Pasig, either in meetings or trying to get some solo-work done in between them. Every now and then, I’ll go on a customer visit, although I usually leave that to our Sales Team. A few times a year, I travel to our branches—most often Davao—and occasionally overseas to meet suppliers or attend industry trade fairs. Those trips are usually very important for our business.
Share a challenge you've overcome.
NICO: COVID and the years that followed were brutal for our fertilizer business. Costs tripled, demand almost disappeared, and for the first time in my career, I found myself looking at year after year of losses in one of our business units. It was a disaster. We were fortunate that the parent company was financially strong enough to support the business while we worked through it. There was no quick fix. It took a lot of hard work—mainly around diversifying our supply sources, finding new customers, developing new markets, and drumming up business wherever we could. Things have improved and the outlook is much better today, although there are still plenty of challenges ahead. The experience taught me that sometimes overcoming a challenge is not about one big breakthrough, but about making difficult adjustments, and most of all refusing to give up.
Share a small win.
NICO: One of my proudest moments was Unilox turning 50 years old in 2024. I know it is very rare for a businesses make it that far, so we must be doing something right. It was such a validation of the values my father imparted into the business and the strong systems I have been building into it over the past 30 years. I was also super proud of our team because, fittingly, we marked our 50th year with an excellent financial performance. I tell everyone what a great birthday gift we have given our company.
Image Gallery (click to zoom)
Origin Story / Overview
Describe your business in a sentence.
Unilox is an industrial business, practically all B2B, serving a diverse range of local Philippine Industries from Plastics, Shipping, Commercial Fishing, Mining, Cement, Paint, Rubber and most recently Agriculture. Unilox makes and supplies many of the essential industrial products most people never see, but that help keep everything from batteries and plastics to ships and factories working.
Introduce yourself.
NICO: I am Nico Paradies, the eldest son of Bobby and Martha Paradies, a second generation working family member of Unilox Industrial Corporation. Unilox was founded in 1974 as an offshoot of a battery manufacturing plant. Over the past 52 years it has grown to be a diversified collective small group of companies in the Chemicals, Marine, Engineering, Construction and Agricultural business.
BOBBY: I'm Bobby Paradies, a fourth generation family member. I started and managed Unilox as a subsidiary of ACO in 1974 and ended up acquiring it after a 3,4 years during which time I left the family business and went on my own. Unilox started as a manufacturer of lead oxides for the paint and bettery industry and as a smelter of scrap lead. Most of this business has been discontinued and has instead developed into what has been earlier mentioned. Unilox is a wholly owned enterprise of the Robert Paradies Family. The company today is run and managed by eldest son Nico Paradies.
What inspired this venture?
BOBBY: Myself and other executives of ACO formed the Company in 1974, as an undisclosed subsidiary of ACO. During the first few months, operations were not profitable. As a result, top management felt the business was too small and not worth the executive's time that needed to be spent on it. Plans were started to close down. I felt otherwise, as I could see that things were staring to turn around. So I made the difficult decision of buying out ACO's interests, which meant I had to leave being an employee of the family business. Negotiations on the buyout were held with Louie Aboitiz, the CEO then. It was tough going as one would expect with Louie. But with the intervention of Eddie Aboitiz we finally arrived at an agreement. This was in March 1976.
What do you hope younger family members learn from your story?
NICO: Working in a family business can be incredibly fulfilling. Growing up, I was always inspired by the success stories of our Aboitiz family. At one point, I even imagined that I might apply to work there someday. In the end, I found that same sense of purpose in our own family business. There is something very meaningful about building on what the generation before you started, while also finding your own way to contribute.
BOBBY: Decisions to leave the family business must be considered very carefully because once you leave you cant go back.
How can our family best support your business?
NICO: If you own a yacht, give me a call. I've got a propeller with your name on it.
Speed Round
Walk us through a slice of your routine.
NICO: I can’t say I have a very fixed routine. Most of the time, I’m at our head office in Pasig, either in meetings or trying to get some solo-work done in between them. Every now and then, I’ll go on a customer visit, although I usually leave that to our Sales Team. A few times a year, I travel to our branches—most often Davao—and occasionally overseas to meet suppliers or attend industry trade fairs. Those trips are usually very important for our business.
Share a challenge you've overcome.
NICO: COVID and the years that followed were brutal for our fertilizer business. Costs tripled, demand almost disappeared, and for the first time in my career, I found myself looking at year after year of losses in one of our business units. It was a disaster. We were fortunate that the parent company was financially strong enough to support the business while we worked through it. There was no quick fix. It took a lot of hard work—mainly around diversifying our supply sources, finding new customers, developing new markets, and drumming up business wherever we could. Things have improved and the outlook is much better today, although there are still plenty of challenges ahead. The experience taught me that sometimes overcoming a challenge is not about one big breakthrough, but about making difficult adjustments, and most of all refusing to give up.
Share a small win.
NICO: One of my proudest moments was Unilox turning 50 years old in 2024. I know it is very rare for a businesses make it that far, so we must be doing something right. It was such a validation of the values my father imparted into the business and the strong systems I have been building into it over the past 30 years. I was also super proud of our team because, fittingly, we marked our 50th year with an excellent financial performance. I tell everyone what a great birthday gift we have given our company.
Lessons & Advice
What principle has shaped your success?
NICO: I believe suppliers are extremely important for our business —sometimes even more important than customers. In the Philippines, I’ve seen many companies treat their suppliers poorly. At Unilox, we try to do the opposite: treat suppliers as long-term partners, take care of the relationship, and build trust over time. In several of our niche businesses, the right strategic supplier is the key component that makes the business successful.
BOBBY: It is important for success to be good at organizing.
Advice for the next generation.
BOBBY: Don't start a business unless you're good at numbers and accounting
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