TOKYO — September 13, 2016 — Teijin Ltd. announced today that it has agreed to acquire Continental Structural Plastics Holdings Corp. (CSP), an automotive composite supplier in North America, for $825 million. CSP will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Teijin. Through this acquisition, Teijin intends to establish the foundations of an automotive composite products business in North America, and to accelerate its expansion as a tier 1 supplier of high-performance composites to the global automotive market.

The shares of CSP will be purchased by Teijin Holdings USA Inc., the Teijin Group’s holding company in the United States. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed in December 2016 after satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval.

CSP is a leading manufacturer of thermoset composites in the automotive industry and is the world’s largest sheet molding compound (SMC) manufacturer for automakers. Since its establishment in 1969, CSP has provided leading-edge technologies in lightweight materials and composite solutions such as glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) for the automotive industry. Headquartered in Auburn Hills, Mich., CSP provides full-service engineering support, and holds more than 50 patents covering materials development and manufacturing processes in composite materials formulation and design. Its Class A surfaces produced by its SMC technology have been adopted by various automakers in the US, Europe and Japan.The company has 14 facilities in the US, Mexico, France and China and approximately 3,200 employees. It posted consolidated sales of over USD 634 million in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015.

Teijin will benefit from CSP’s established sales channels in the North American automotive market, which will enable the combined business to provide a broader range of solutions that meet automakers’ demands for weight reduction and durability, utilizing the company’s thermoplastic composite technologies.

The integration of CSP’s technical expertise in thermoset composites and Teijin’s leadership in complementary thermoplastics creates significant synergies for comprehensive multi-material applications to meet diversified demands from the automotive industry. Through this transaction, Teijin aims to become an automotive solution provider by expanding its offerings beyond carbon fiber and glass fiber materials, in collaboration with other materials manufacturers. Teijin intends to expand its product portfolio from materials to component design, implement a global supply chain and help achieve vehicle weight reductions in order to comply with tighter environmental regulations being introduced after 2020.

The combination of CSP’s thermoset capabilities, especially its GFRP technology, and Teijin’s high-performance composites such as carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP), will help reduce weight and component count in finished products. This will in turn improve recycling efficiency and offer automakers value-added solutions that meet their requirements for more environmentally friendly components at lower cost. Teijin will also utilize CSP’s European Center for Advanced Technology in France and Teijin’s own composite production facilities to enhance its global development capabilities, allowing the combined business to better address the requirements of European, Japanese and Asian automakers. The automotive composite products business of the Teijin Group is targeting annual sales of USD 2.0 billion by 2030.

Jun Suzuki, President and CEO of Teijin Ltd., commented: “Since being appointed as Teijin’s president in January 2014, I have pursued business models that help provide value-added solutions by combining and integrating our own materials, healthcare and IT technologies. We are confident that the platform for automotive composite products business we will gain through the acquisition of CSP’s complementary technical expertise in thermoset composites and GFRP know-how will trigger further development of our integrated high-performance materials business, one of our key strategic fields.”

Suzuki added: “Utilizing such synergy effects, and as outlined in our 2014 Transformation and Growth Strategies in Revised Medium-Term Management Plan, Teijin aims to provide consistent upstream-to-downstream solutions and realize one of the company’s growth concepts, which is high-performance materials technologies that create new value. The Teijin Group will continue to evolve, aiming to become a company that supports future society leveraging our core strengths in integrated high-performance materials and healthcare.”

Teijin is implementing a solutions-oriented business model as part of its long-term management vision, with development of composite applications for mass-produced automotive components one of its priorities in the field of high-performance fibers. Environmental concerns such as CO2 emission reductions and improvements in fuel efficiency are now global issues; accelerated development of tough and lightweight eco-friendly composite components is therefore a pressing task in the automotive industry. Teijin is now focused on establishing a platform for business development in automotive composite products, aiming to provide a wider range of solutions for automakers.

Teijin established its Teijin Composites Innovation Center in 2008 and has focused on developing leading-edge composite product technologies and applications. In 2011 the company developed the world’s first mass-production technology for CFRTP, with a production interval time — or “takt-time” — of just one minute. Teijin subsequently established a technical facility in the US and a pilot plant for the fully integrated production of CFRTP in Japan. In 2012 it branded the world’s first CFRTP product — Sereebo™ — and has been preparing this for commercial use via high-volume production methods in collaboration with domestic and international enterprises. Meanwhile, Toho Tenax Co., Ltd., the core company of the group’s carbon fibers and composites business, has developed an integrated production system for carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) using its Tenax® Part via Preform (PvP) technology that considerably reduces carbon-fiber waste compared to conventional preform production methods. Furthermore, Teijin obtained ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for its evaluation capabilities in 2015 and ISO/TS 16949 accreditation for automotive production and relevant service part organizations in 2016.

Posted September 13, 2016

Source: Teijin Ltd.

REIDSVILLE, N.C. — September 9, 2016 — Unifi Inc. celebrated the official opening of its REPREVE® Bottle Processing Center. The more than $28 million investment will help Unifi achieve its goal of vertical integration for its Repreve recycled product line, adding flexibility, expanding production capabilities and supporting volume growth. Repreve is Unifi’s recycled brand, made from recycled materials such as plastic water bottles. The Repreve Bottle Processing Center will add 87 new jobs in the Reidsville, N.C., area, ranging from salaried managers and engineers, to hourly operators, material handlers, electricians, mechanics and more.

“This expansion of Unifi’s Repreve business will bring jobs to our state and furthers North Carolina’s leadership in high-tech manufacturing,” said Governor McCrory. “I am proud that our efforts to improve North Carolina’s business climate, invest in infrastructure and encourage building reuse have helped companies like Unifi grow and succeed.”

Bottles await a new life at Unifi’s Repreve Bottle Processing Center in N.C.
The REPREVE Bottle Processing Center includes more than 150,000 square feet of space to be utilized for the new operation, located at the Company’s facilities in Reidsville, N.C. The state-of-the-art recycling center is one of the most advanced in the United States, with the capacity to produce annually 75 million pounds of the highest quality, consistent, clean bottle flake.

Unifi will purchase baled PET bottles from materials recovery facilities across the eastern United States, and bring them to the Repreve Bottle Processing Center, where undesirable materials will be sorted and filtered using multiple processes to ensure that only the proper, high-quality bottles are kept for use. Unifi will then remove labels, debris and caps from the remaining PET bottles. These bottles will be chopped into flake, washed, dried and bagged for use in the production of Repreve, or sold to other companies for a variety of consumer packaging applications, such as thermoformed food-grade packaging like cups and takeout containers, as well as non-food applications such as strapping and film.

“The vertical integration of our Repreve manufacturing process highlights an important next step in Unifi’s continued path toward sustainability and producing high-quality, value-added products,” said Tom Caudle, president of Unifi. “The Repreve Bottle Processing Center uses custom-designed, cutting-edge technology and provides increased flexibility that will allow us to better serve our customers, as well as create a new channel of revenue. We are also proud to support manufacturing in North Carolina and to add new jobs in our communities.”

Rockingham County provided a $25,000 matching grant that allowed the REPREVE Bottle Processing Center expansion to qualify for a Building Reuse Grant of $500,000 from the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority under the Rural Economic Development Division at the North Carolina Department of Commerce. To support the expansion of the facility, a Community Development Block Grant in the amount of $861,000 from the North Carolina Department of Commerce was awarded to the city of Reidsville for a larger sewer line to replace aged infrastructure.

Some of the world’s favorite brands use Repreve in a variety of auto, outdoor, home and apparel products, including Levi’s, Haggar, Ford and The North Face. Since inception, Unifi has recycled more than 4 billion plastic water bottles into Repreve.

Posted: September 9, 2016

Source: Unifi