Argo · Argoclima 🇮🇹

The history of Argo begins in a foundry. In 1929 Luigi Filiberti, a foundry worker, created the Fonderie Luigi Filiberti in Cavaria with Premezzo, in the province of Varese, which at the end of the thirties became a joint-stock company. After the war the company turned to heating, and in 1947 it started selling burners, stoves and gas heaters under the Argo brand. Under the founder’s sons, Luciano and Giancarlo, plants were opened in Oggiona with Santo Stefano and, in 1952, the large 40,000 m² warehouse in Gallarate that remains the headquarters.

Argo claims to have launched in 1960 “the first Italian window air conditioner”; the Italian Wikipedia is more cautious and places it in 1968 among the first companies in the country to manufacture air conditioning. In any case, in the seventies it was a leader in Italy and exported, until the early‑eighties crisis led it in 1984 to administration controlled by Banca Popolare di Milano, with the closure of the Cavaria and Oggiona factories.

In 1988 it was bought by El.Fi., the holding of Verolanuova (Brescia) of the brothers Luigi and Gianfranco Nocivelli, and in 1991 came the move that defined its golden era: the joint venture Sanyo Argoclima S.r.l., with El.Fi. at 51 %, the Japanese Sanyo at 39 % and Sumitomo at 10 %. Gallarate became one of the largest air‑conditioning factories in Europe, produced Sanyo’s European units and, in return, obtained inverter technology. That same 1991 Argo launched its first portable units and fixed splits on the market, and in 1992 it bought the French Technibel to dominate the cold‑water groups.

In 2000 the company was renamed Argoclima S.p.A. and in 2001 control passed to Aer.Fi., also of the Nocivelli. When Panasonic absorbed Sanyo in 2009, Argo and Technibel continued operating independently in Europe and opened the factory to OEM customers, with about 150,000 units per year. In 2014 it sold Technibel to the Swedish Nibe. Today Paolo Nocivelli, son of Gianfranco, controls 90.87 % of the capital; in 2023 the company generated 80 million euros in revenue with a staff of about 50 employees, a sign that a large part of production is subcontracted, and celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2019 by inaugurating the Argo Academy in Cavaria.

For the classic air enthusiast, Argo is synonymous with two‑piece portable units like the Ulisse, with its small outdoor unit hanging from the window, the Milo Plus, and the monoblocks without an outdoor unit with which it competes with Olimpia Splendid. Its second logistical base is in Alfianello (Brescia).

Pending verification

The date of the first conditioner (1960 according to the company, 1968 according to Wikipedia) and the year Technibel was purchased (1992 according to French sources; Wikipedia places it around 2000) do not match across sources. No own commercial presence in Spain has been verified.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.