Jofo Nonwovens, based in Weifang, Shandong, China, will accquire PFNonwovens' Wuxi, China-based nonwovens operation. PFNonwovens acquired the operation from First Quality Nonwovens in 2018. First Quality started making spunmelt nonwovens in Wuxi in 2013.
JOFO, fast growing and leading nonwovens supplier in China, has four manufacturing sites in Asia. With the transaction, JOFO is expecting to enter into growing medical sector on top of its existing hygiene and industrial businesses.
PFN is a global leading producer of nonwoven textiles with operations in Europe, USA and Africa. It will continue, post transaction, to supply nonwovens worldwide to its customers in absorbent hygiene with a focus on premium infant care, adult incontinence, feminine hygiene and medical protective products for the retail and health care markets.
“PFN Wuxi is a very well managed site with a strong team and very good location," says Rain Tian, CEO of Jofo. "This transaction takes JOFO entering into medical nonwovne market in Asia and provides more capacity to address the growing demand of our existing customers. Also, a strong logistic position in East China region will enable JOFO to support the customers in those region better. We commit to invest strongly in Wuxi site to make it a strong manufacturing base with more new capacities and technologies to better serve our customers.”
“This transaction will enable us to fully focus on supporting our global customers in their key markets, as we continue to build on PFN`s core strengths, namely high value added and innovative products. It will allow us to bring forward the building of two new production lines in North America and Europe to increase our production capacities in absorbent hygiene and the medical segment," says Allen Bodford, CEO of PFN. "In addition, we will continue our expansion into Africa with our new South African line, which started its commercial production in Q4 2019. We are very pleased that we are passing on the Wuxi plant to a strong Chinese investor with plans to expand capacity and to build out the facility. We would like to also express our sincere appreciation and gratitude to our entire workforce in China for all their great work over the years.”
In April, PFN announced it was adding a Reicofil 5 spunmelt line in the U.S. and a meltblown asset in the Czech Republic. The U.S. investment will largely target medical and hygiene applications while the Czech line will make materials for face masks and medical wipes, which will be made available to the Czech government as well as private customers.
Dentons Singapore and Shanghai served as legal counsel to PFN.
