Fibertex Nonwovens acquires new spunlacing production site in the US
AALBORG, Denmark–Fibertex Nonwovens, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Danish industrial conglomerate Schouw & Co., acquired a newly established state-of-the-art spunlacing production business in Gray Court, South Carolina.
The new production site provides Fibertex Nonwovens, one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of non-woven textiles, a strategically important foundation for further growth in the North American market. The facility’s current line has an annual capacity of 14,000 tons and the current facility has room to expand with additional production lines. With this acquisition, Fibertex Nonwovens will gain approximately 20 acres of industrial site, providing attractive opportunities for expansion. The newly acquired site in South Carolina is a strategic good complement to Fibertex Nonwovens’ existing site in Illinois.
“We will exploit the advantages of now having Fibertex Nonwovens production sites located in the most important markets in Europe, Africa, South and North America,” said Jørgen Bech Madsen, CEO of Fibertex Nonwovens. “At the same time, we will make full use of the company’s adaptability, which has contributed to some of the most recent technological breakthroughs. We therefore see a great potential in investing in further growth.”
The seller is the Turkish nonwovens manufacturer, Mogul, which established the production site in South Carolina in 2016. The South Carolina plant has a production line with the latest spunlacing technology, a relatively advanced method of production, where the fibers of the non-woven textiles are entangled using high-speed jets of water. Fibertex Nonwovens has many years of positive experience with this technology, which is increasingly gaining traction in the nonwovens industry worldwide.
“We have been offered to acquire the production site as Mogul wants to focus on its MadalineTM product and new innovative nonwovens in Turkey,” said Madsen. “The line has been built in accordance with state-of-the-art production principles and already operates in a fully reliable manner. In this way, we save time and money compared to a greenfield investment in North America, where the market is currently undergoing rapid growth.”
About Fibertex Nonwovens
Fibertex was acquired by Schouw & Co. in 2002 and effective from 1 January 2011 divided into two associated companies, namely Fibertex Nonwovens and Fibertex Personal Care.
Fibertex Nonwovens is a leading manufacturer of nonwovens, i.e. nonwoven textiles used for many different applications such as in the automotive industry, the furniture industry, the construction industry, personal care, geotextiles and in different niche industries.
Fibertex Nonwovens is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Schouw & Co. and is headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, where the company was established in 1968. The company has an annual turnover of DKK 1.4 billion (2017) and has – besides from the new North American unit – production units in Denmark, Brazil, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey, USA and South Africa along with subsidiaries in France, Portugal and Spain.
