Posted April 14, 2015

HELSINKI, Finland – Suominen, a supplier of nonwovens, announced in January that it has started a planning process to execute an investment in a new wetlaid production line in North America. Suominen has now decided that, if the planning process proceeds as expected, the location of the planned manufacturing line would be Suominen’s existing plant in Bethune, S.C.

As announced in January, the planned investment constitutes the most significant single initiative in Suominen’s 30–50 million euro investment program and supports Suominen’s growth target for the strategic period of 2015–2017.

“The planned manufacturing line would contribute essentially for the execution of Suominen’s growth strategy,” said Saara Söderberg, vice president, Marketing & Product Management and the project manager of the investment initiative. “Through successful strategy execution, as we have announced, Suominen would become a company with a net sales of roughly EUR 500 million by the end of 2017. Besides, the investment would support our target to further increase the share of products with higher value-added in our portfolio.”

 

Added Larry L. Kinn, senior vice president of Operations, Americas: “We selected the Bethune, S.C. plant as the platform for this potential investment for several strategic and financial reasons. Bethune is ideally located in the Carolinas, the nonwovens hub of North America, and is favorably located from a logistical standpoint of serving our customers and managing our raw materials. Moreover, the Bethune plant already has ongoing operations, a very talented staff and has considerable infrastructure already in place for the expansion.”

 

Suominen continues to prepare the investment project, with finalization of the decision still pending.

 

Suominen manufactures nonwovens as roll goods for wipes as well as for medical and hygiene products. The end products made of Suominen’s nonwovens – wet wipes, feminine care products and swabs, for instance – bring added value to the daily life of consumers worldwide.

 

Source: Suominen