WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF MTNG/MUSTANG?

HISTORY OF THE COMPANY AND THE BRAND

The origins of Mustang are to be found in a city, Elche, which observed how its footwear industry, flourishing in other days, had gradually become stagnant. During the 1960s, a generation of new entrepreneurs emerged in the city, filled with ideas and enthusiasm to improve a socially deprived situation. Pascual Ros was one of them. Thus, this brief history, which is also that of its brand (Mustang), is a journey of over 40 years through its business trajectory.

From a humble agricultural family, he had to rely on his own efforts to achieve his goals. His first job was at the age of 15, at Curtidos Candela, where he fell in love with a scent that would accompany him for the rest of his life, the smell of leather, which he distributed to various workshops around the city. He soon moved on to work at Calzados Buendía as a cutter, and then began his own personal adventure at the age of 17 in a small space, which was a gym, on Pedro Canales street in Elche. There, he established his first vulcanized shoe factory: Vulcanros, alongside his sisters and brother-in-law. But the big step came with the construction of a warehouse on Joaquín García Mora street, which under the name Pascual Ros Aguilar S.L., marked the true starting point for everything that would become the Mustang adventure.

We could say that names somehow choose the men, and this name (Mustang), so intimately linked with the idea of freedom projected by this breed of wild American horses, had always inhabited him and chose him for an adventure unparalleled in Elche.

After three years of intense work trying to boost the company, he had to leave to fulfill military service in Ceuta, leaving the direction of the company to his sister Bienvenida R. and his brother-in-law, Paco N. When he returned, he came back with the idea of promoting his true vocation for export, which would lead him to open borders in different parts of the world. In these early days, the company manufactured and marketed footwear for major retail chains in America, Africa, and Europe. The commitment to the name Mustang revolved around the company's image, sometimes being included in the product itself.

In 1969, Pascual participated in the first Spanish footwear trade mission in the basements of the Chamber of Commerce in the German city of Frankfurt. From this moment on, he began to forge a series of personal relationships that would soon turn into business relationships, marking the international takeoff of the brand. He managed to surround himself with individuals who knew how to navigate effectively in different markets and, above all, helped Mustang start carving out a niche in the European footwear scene.

Despite the hurdles of the 1973 crisis and the political uncertainty in Spain, his project continued to advance over the following years with some ups and downs, primarily due to the excessive concentration of a large volume of business in a few clients.

In the early 1980s, one of the most profound transformations the company underwent took place when it relocated to a new headquarters, located on the Aspe road and locally known as "el Butano". During those times, Pascual Ros implemented a new way of understanding the company, modeled after the factories he encountered during his frequent travels across Europe: with rest areas for workers, healthcare assistance, a kitchen, and even a library.

All of this aimed to foster a new concept of a factory, closer to that of a family of workers, always with the aspiration to improve the industrial landscape of Elche. Those years of great changes in society and in the fast-moving consumer goods market prompted a new transformation of the company, which moved Mustang away from the rigidly structured company model but brought it closer to providing a better response to the new needs of customers. Pascual Ros was aware of the different opportunities that arose in the footwear sector, and his eagerness to seize them led him to implement a strategy based on different specialized manufacturing lines (all encompassed under the same trade name: Mustang, but with different corporate names) according to the type of footwear demanded by each country. This strategy allowed him to better adapt to the requirements of each international market and soon bore fruit, reaching a sales figure of 9,000 pairs daily (a record for that time).

In the late 1980s, Pascual Ros went through one of his most challenging moments, where his entrepreneurial dream was at risk due to a severe back ailment that kept him inactive for a while, affecting the progress of the company. But with the constant support of his wife Conchita, always by his side, and the gradual involvement of his children Pascual, Santi, Sergio, and María in the project, Pascual Ros returned to his professional activity with a fundamental idea: to place his company dream where he truly believed it belonged, dedicating himself to it wholeheartedly. This marked a new momentum for Pascual, as he continued to exercise his natural leadership, imparting his global vision of the business to his children and causing those around him to breathe the Mustang brand as intensely as he did.

With the incorporation of Pascual Ros's children into the company in the early 1990s, it was decided to boost the Mustang brand through product, focusing on a younger audience and betting on brand awareness and positioning as means to achieve the company's goals.

The emergence of a new expanding market niche: the teenage middle class with greater purchasing power and decision-making ability, helped achieve significant growth during the second half of the 1990s.

During this period, Pascual Ros made a wise investment in machinery to meet the strong growth in sales in the following years, and achieved great success with collections such as "Oasis," cowboy boots, or court shoes. However, above all, the takeoff was due to the constant and intense work of the entire team that comprised the company, with one person standing out: Mari Cruz, who from the beginning was involved and defended the interests of the company. Everyone worked with the clear premise, which remains to this day: "The company's customers and suppliers are considered partners and, therefore, part of the project."

According to Pascual Ros, this journey of over 40 years is built on three fundamental pillars that have consolidated the Mustang brand to its current status: firstly, establishing a culture of rapid product turnover; ensuring that the product was in the market at the right time. Secondly, achieving a close relationship with customers and the employees themselves, whom Pascual Ros always considered as family and endeavored to care for as such. And finally, the resolute commitment, time and time again, to a company project that endowed it with sustainable growth and solidity it enjoys today. All of this was carried out with the founder's strong personal conviction: to believe in his brand more than anyone else, fighting for it until the end and always remembering a phrase he made his own:

"Without enthusiasm, there is no project".