International Operations
In April 2004 Ahlstrom and The Sonoco Corporation announced plans to combine their paperboard-core units in Europe.
Ahlstrom moved part of the operations of its facility in Mt. Holly Springs, Pennsylvania to Bishopville, South Carolina in 2007. About 70 jobs were lost in Pennsylvania.
In late 2006, Argonide licensed to Ahlstrom the rights to manufacture, market and sell filter media as roll stock under the trade name of Disruptor.
On March 30, 2007, Ahlstrom signed an agreement to acquire the consumer wipes business of Fiberweb plc. Following the acquisition, Ahlstrom became the third largest producer of nonwoven roll goods globally.
The acquired business included four plants located in Europe (Alicante, Spain; Mozzate, Italy; Carbonate, Italy) and in the USA (Bethune, SC). In 2006, the net sales of the acquired business amounted to EUR 110 million and it employed approximately 400 people. The wiping fabrics currently produced by Fiberweb's consumer wipes business are used mainly in personal care, baby care and household wipes applications. Ahlstrom closed the deal on May 25, 2007.
On February 1, 2008, Ahlstrom announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire Friend Group Inc., which consists of West Carrollton Parchment Company and West Carrollton Converting Company. The Group is a producer of vegetable parchment and has parchmentizing and converting operations located in West Carrollton, Ohio, USA. The transaction was completed in March 2008.
The new entity was integrated into Ahlstrom's vegetable parchment product line, which is part of the Food and Medical business area currently operating two sites manufacturing vegetable parchment in France and serving customers globally.
Ahlstrom announced on September 14, 2010 that it has completed the acquisition of Shandong Puri Filter & Paper Products Limited in China from the Purico Group.
Shandong Puri Filter & Paper Products Limited is a producer of transportation filtration media and operates a plant in Binzhou in the province of Shandong in northeastern China. The site currently employs 170 persons. The debt free transaction value is MEUR 22.5.
On October 28, 2010, Ahlstrom announced that a joint venture agreement was signed with Longkou Yulong Paper Company Ltd, to establish a new manufacturing facility by 2012 in Longkou China for production of medical papers and masking tape.
On December 3, 2010, Ahlstrom signed an agreement to exit its Sealing & Shielding business unit through the sale of Ahlstrom Altenkirchen GmbH in Germany. The acquirer is Interface Solutions, a portfolio company of Pennsylvania-based family owned private equity fund Susquehanna Capital. On December 7, 2010, Ahlstrom announced the sale of its Wuxi plant in China and 3 production lines in Bethune, SC to Andrew Industries.
On December 16, 2010, Ahlstrom announced the sale of its filtration business located in Groesbeck Texas, to Polyester Fibers, a portfolio company of private investment firm Empire Investment Holdings.
Ahlstrom Corporation, a global high performance materials company signed an agreement on August 4, 2011 to divest its wipes fabrics business area, Home and Personal, to Suominen Corporation, a Finnish publicly listed company. The total value of the transaction is approximately EUR 170 million.
Read more about this topic: Ahlstrom
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)