01.01.07
Location: Weinheim, Germany
Sales: $1.4 billion
Description: Key Personnel
Management Board: Bruce Olson, president and CEO, Dr. René Wollert, CFO; Georg Brasch, managing director; Worldwide Divisions: Dr. Heino Freudenberg and Gerhard Schaut, general managers of interlinings; Bill Casey, general manager of tuft, Dr. Jörg Sievert and Dr. Andreas Kreuter, general managers of filter, Christian Marx, general manager Nonwovens Europe, Juan Charlos Borchardt, general manager Latin America
Plants
Weinheim, Germany; Neuenburg, Germany; Kaiserslautern, Germany; Greetland, U.K.; Swindon U.K.; Colmar, France; Barcelona, Spain; St. Omero, Italy; Cape Town, South Africa; San Martin/Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jacarei, Brazil; Suzhou, China; Changchun, China; Nantong, China; Yang Mei Tao-Yuan, Taiwan; Tayuan, Taiwan; Durham, NC; Hopkinsville, KY and Pyungtaek, South Korea (Korea Vilene Company); Mumbai, India; Chennai, India
Processes
Drylaid staple fiber, wetlaid, spunbonded, meltblown, electrostatic spun microfiber, needlepunched, thermal bonded, chemical bonded, water entanglement
ISO Status
All locations are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified; locations serving the automotive industry are QS 9000 certified; 25% of the plants are OSHAS 18001 certified
Brand Names
Vilene, Viledon, Vilmed, Pellon, MicronAir, Vlieseline, Vildona, Fliselina, Lutradur, Lutrasil, Evolon, Comfortemp, Vitech, Celestia, Soundtex
Major Markets
Apparel interlinings, filtration, medical, protective clothing, automotive interior trim, electrical insulation, electrical specialties, home furnishings, industrial wipes, hygiene, shoe components, coating substrates, carpet backings, landscape fabrics, geotextiles, agriculture, furniture and bedding and industrial nonwoven specialties
Sales increased slightly for the world’s largest nonwovens producer Freudenberg, Weinheim, Germany as the company continued to streamline its business and prepare it for the future under the direction of new chairman Bruce Olson. A former senior vice president at chemical manufacturer Rockwood Specialties, Mr. Olson replaces Stephan Tanda, who left the company in March to join Dutch chemical company DSM.
At the center of Freudenberg’s growth efforts is a restructuring program, announced in October 2005, affecting its German operations as well as a plan to streamline its North American businesses.
In Germany, Freudenberg reduced its workforce throughout its facilities in Weinheim, Kaiserslautern and Bochum in a move that will save an estimated €30 million annually. Meanwhile, in North America, Freudenberg has reduced the number of corporate layers within its business to speed the decision-making processes within its specific market areas. Instead of looking at its business through different technologies, Freudenberg North America is now grouping together its tuft businesses by the industries they serve. The result has been the formation of two groups—Automotive Business and Building Products Systems. “As we add new capacity, we think this structure is a better way to go to market,” said global general manager of Freudenberg’s tufts business, William Casey. “It allows us to take all of our technologies to market in one group.”
Mr. Casey took over responsibility for North America, in addition to his role at the helm of Freudenberg’s spunbond polyester tufts business, when North America president and CEO Walter Schwarz left the company in January.
Additional factors positively impacting Freudenberg’s business include €7 million upgrade to its wetlaid nonwovens line in Neuenburg, Germany and continuing growth in Asia, where it operates a number of joint venture and stand-alone enterprises. Negative influences include continuing raw material concerns and pressure on the North America automotives market.
Freudenberg continues to focus on five global segments—tufts, filtration, interlinings, hygiene and medical and technical.
Freudenberg’s tuft division is set to benefit from the addition of a new fine denier line in Kaiserslautern, Germany that will allow it to make products with a number of polymers and shapes and essentially target a range of new market areas. Additionally, Freudenberg opened a new spunbond polyester line in Taiwan in March, which will allow it to expand capacity of its existing products. With 12,000 tons of capacity, the new line is Freudenberg’s largest of this technology and will mainly serve the Asian markets, according to executives.
Freudenberg’s filter division has benefited from the introduction of several new products, all based on in-house nonwovens technology, such as full synthetic media for oil and fuel filtration, new dust removal cartridges for air pollution control, new rigid filters and new pocket filters for the HVAC markets and new micronAir cabin air filters for the collection of fine dust. “All of these new products fall into Freudenberg’s core strategy to strengthen its market position in the global filtration market,” said company spokesman Christof Schroeder.
MicronAir cabin filtration systems for automotive interiors continue to be a bright spot for Freudenberg as their usage continues to grow throughout the world, activity that has been fueled by the establishment of new converting centers in Mexico, India and Slovakia, bringing it closer to customers.
Still, this segment is not without its problems. “The pricing pressure in the cabin air filter segment is extremely strong due to the strong requests from the automotive industry,” Mr. Schroeder explained. Freudenberg has responded to this pressure by offering a great variety of cabin air filters, which differ in price and quality and offer the customers the most suitable solutions.”
Meanwhile, in Asia Freudenberg’s filter business continues to benefit from its joint venture, formed in 2004 with Chinese partners, called Freudenberg & Vilene Filters, which acquired the filtration business of Changchun Autofilter Company. This venture is supplying motor and cabin air filter housings as well as filter elements to leading automotive manufacturers in Northern and Eastern China and is helping fuel Freudenberg’s position in the Chinese automotives market.
Another segment experiencing Chinese growth is interlinings, which has followed the apparel industry’s migration to Asia. While the sharp declines of this business in developed regions has slowed down, the shift to Asia is still ongoing and Freudenberg has responded to this through the acquisition of Nantong Hymo Co., a market-leading manufacturer of interlinings in China. Since its acquisition in May 2005, Nantong Hymo has allowed Freudenberg’s Asian interlinings business to include more than 1000 employees throughout Asia where it operates five factories—in China (two), Korea, Taiwan and India.
In hygiene and medical, Freudenberg continues to avoid mass production in commodity segments and instead has targeted niche applications such as topsheets, barrier leg cuffs, acquisition layers and textile backsheets as well as products for incontinence and feminine hygiene and nonwovens for woundcare applications.
The fifth segment, technical, includes a wide range of smaller niche and specialty segments. One of these areas, battery separators, has benefited from the acquisition of SciMat, Ltd., Swindon, U.K., a world leader in finishing of battery separators.
Another strong market for Freudenberg is bedding and mattress, an area that has appeared on the radars of many nonwovens producers since antiflammability legislation was passed in the U.S. last year and enacted earlier this summer. For its part, Freudenberg offers a full range of tops, sides and bottoms of mattresses that allows bedding manufacturers to achieve the antiflammability standards issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission that mattress materials not combust when subjected to heat for a set amount of time.
“We provide services that our customers would not be able to achieve certification without,” explained Mr. Casey, calling flame blocker mattresses a large market for nonwovens with high margins. “It’s really a challenge to do business in this marketplace because it’s taken so long for these regulations to come to light.”
Beyond, Freudenberg’s five key divisions is its Evolon business, which was first established in 1999 when the company began making the continuous filament spunlace nonwovens on a line in Colmar, France. Since then, the company has been quietly focusing on reducing the weight of this material, which features attractive drape and easy launderability, and promoting its benefits in markets that may not typically use nonwovens. Now, the company is finally looking realistically at plans for a second Evolon production line, probably in 2010, although the size and location of this new line has not been finalized.
“We are seeing Evolon as a great replacement for printable PVC,” Christof Schroeder said. “It is cost competitive and can take a lot of printing.” Additionally, the acoustical benefits of Evolon have made it popular in the automotives market.
Freudenberg’s Novolon technology, which can transform a two-dimensional woven or nonwoven substrate into a three-dimensional product to improve performance in a number of applications, is now being used by sister company Freudenberg Household Products, Augsburg, Germany, to produce household wipes.
Meanwhile, on the global front, Freudenberg continues its aggressive growth strategy throughout the world. In addition to investment in its Asian interlinings, filtration and tufts businesses, the company has recently taken steps to beef up its Latin American presence through a new joint venture with Ted Rad Cuyo (TRC), an Argentinean fiber supplier, called Bicomfiber S.A. Established in June, the new company will produce different types of bicomponent fibers for multiple purposes and applications. TRC, the main shareholder of the new company, is one of the most important producers of polypropylene fiber for the hygiene market in Latin America. “We are proud of the new venture, which enlarges our involvement within the market in Latin America,” said Guillermo Kraves, president of TRC.
Freudenberg Nonwovens Latin America is the nonwovens regional market leader in non-commodity businesses. “We will continue to deliver different types of added value products to our customer. The raw material sourcing is a key part of our growth strategy,” said Juan Carlos Borchardt, president of Freudenberg Nonwovens Latin America. ""With this new joint venture we will be able to offer a complete package of different materials for the markets where we are presently active, being better prepared for the new challenges to come.”
Bicomfiber will be headquartered near Buenos Aires, Argentina, with an annual capacity exceeding 10,000 tons.
And, in a move to help it expand in Eastern Europe, Freudenberg Politex, its roofing and construction unit, opened the group’s first Russian plant in the Zavolzhie, Nizhniy Novgorod region in late 2006. The plant produces nonwoven backing for roofing membranes that have better insulation properties and a service life two to three times longer than that of the roofing boards used to date. This is the world’s largest and most modern production facility of its kind, according to the company.
The new plant belongs to the Freudenberg Politex Business Group headquartered in Novedrate, Italy. Some €15 million has been invested in the project, which was completed in the space of two years and has brought 40 jobs.
When announcing the new plant, Freudenberg executives referred to the region as a great growth area for a number of Freudenberg businesses and while further plans have not been announced for the region, executives have hinted that these are imminent.
Sales: $1.4 billion
Description: Key Personnel
Management Board: Bruce Olson, president and CEO, Dr. René Wollert, CFO; Georg Brasch, managing director; Worldwide Divisions: Dr. Heino Freudenberg and Gerhard Schaut, general managers of interlinings; Bill Casey, general manager of tuft, Dr. Jörg Sievert and Dr. Andreas Kreuter, general managers of filter, Christian Marx, general manager Nonwovens Europe, Juan Charlos Borchardt, general manager Latin America
Plants
Weinheim, Germany; Neuenburg, Germany; Kaiserslautern, Germany; Greetland, U.K.; Swindon U.K.; Colmar, France; Barcelona, Spain; St. Omero, Italy; Cape Town, South Africa; San Martin/Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jacarei, Brazil; Suzhou, China; Changchun, China; Nantong, China; Yang Mei Tao-Yuan, Taiwan; Tayuan, Taiwan; Durham, NC; Hopkinsville, KY and Pyungtaek, South Korea (Korea Vilene Company); Mumbai, India; Chennai, India
Processes
Drylaid staple fiber, wetlaid, spunbonded, meltblown, electrostatic spun microfiber, needlepunched, thermal bonded, chemical bonded, water entanglement
ISO Status
All locations are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified; locations serving the automotive industry are QS 9000 certified; 25% of the plants are OSHAS 18001 certified
Brand Names
Vilene, Viledon, Vilmed, Pellon, MicronAir, Vlieseline, Vildona, Fliselina, Lutradur, Lutrasil, Evolon, Comfortemp, Vitech, Celestia, Soundtex
Major Markets
Apparel interlinings, filtration, medical, protective clothing, automotive interior trim, electrical insulation, electrical specialties, home furnishings, industrial wipes, hygiene, shoe components, coating substrates, carpet backings, landscape fabrics, geotextiles, agriculture, furniture and bedding and industrial nonwoven specialties
Sales increased slightly for the world’s largest nonwovens producer Freudenberg, Weinheim, Germany as the company continued to streamline its business and prepare it for the future under the direction of new chairman Bruce Olson. A former senior vice president at chemical manufacturer Rockwood Specialties, Mr. Olson replaces Stephan Tanda, who left the company in March to join Dutch chemical company DSM.
At the center of Freudenberg’s growth efforts is a restructuring program, announced in October 2005, affecting its German operations as well as a plan to streamline its North American businesses.
In Germany, Freudenberg reduced its workforce throughout its facilities in Weinheim, Kaiserslautern and Bochum in a move that will save an estimated €30 million annually. Meanwhile, in North America, Freudenberg has reduced the number of corporate layers within its business to speed the decision-making processes within its specific market areas. Instead of looking at its business through different technologies, Freudenberg North America is now grouping together its tuft businesses by the industries they serve. The result has been the formation of two groups—Automotive Business and Building Products Systems. “As we add new capacity, we think this structure is a better way to go to market,” said global general manager of Freudenberg’s tufts business, William Casey. “It allows us to take all of our technologies to market in one group.”
Mr. Casey took over responsibility for North America, in addition to his role at the helm of Freudenberg’s spunbond polyester tufts business, when North America president and CEO Walter Schwarz left the company in January.
Additional factors positively impacting Freudenberg’s business include €7 million upgrade to its wetlaid nonwovens line in Neuenburg, Germany and continuing growth in Asia, where it operates a number of joint venture and stand-alone enterprises. Negative influences include continuing raw material concerns and pressure on the North America automotives market.
Freudenberg continues to focus on five global segments—tufts, filtration, interlinings, hygiene and medical and technical.
Freudenberg’s tuft division is set to benefit from the addition of a new fine denier line in Kaiserslautern, Germany that will allow it to make products with a number of polymers and shapes and essentially target a range of new market areas. Additionally, Freudenberg opened a new spunbond polyester line in Taiwan in March, which will allow it to expand capacity of its existing products. With 12,000 tons of capacity, the new line is Freudenberg’s largest of this technology and will mainly serve the Asian markets, according to executives.
Freudenberg’s filter division has benefited from the introduction of several new products, all based on in-house nonwovens technology, such as full synthetic media for oil and fuel filtration, new dust removal cartridges for air pollution control, new rigid filters and new pocket filters for the HVAC markets and new micronAir cabin air filters for the collection of fine dust. “All of these new products fall into Freudenberg’s core strategy to strengthen its market position in the global filtration market,” said company spokesman Christof Schroeder.
MicronAir cabin filtration systems for automotive interiors continue to be a bright spot for Freudenberg as their usage continues to grow throughout the world, activity that has been fueled by the establishment of new converting centers in Mexico, India and Slovakia, bringing it closer to customers.
Still, this segment is not without its problems. “The pricing pressure in the cabin air filter segment is extremely strong due to the strong requests from the automotive industry,” Mr. Schroeder explained. Freudenberg has responded to this pressure by offering a great variety of cabin air filters, which differ in price and quality and offer the customers the most suitable solutions.”
Meanwhile, in Asia Freudenberg’s filter business continues to benefit from its joint venture, formed in 2004 with Chinese partners, called Freudenberg & Vilene Filters, which acquired the filtration business of Changchun Autofilter Company. This venture is supplying motor and cabin air filter housings as well as filter elements to leading automotive manufacturers in Northern and Eastern China and is helping fuel Freudenberg’s position in the Chinese automotives market.
Another segment experiencing Chinese growth is interlinings, which has followed the apparel industry’s migration to Asia. While the sharp declines of this business in developed regions has slowed down, the shift to Asia is still ongoing and Freudenberg has responded to this through the acquisition of Nantong Hymo Co., a market-leading manufacturer of interlinings in China. Since its acquisition in May 2005, Nantong Hymo has allowed Freudenberg’s Asian interlinings business to include more than 1000 employees throughout Asia where it operates five factories—in China (two), Korea, Taiwan and India.
In hygiene and medical, Freudenberg continues to avoid mass production in commodity segments and instead has targeted niche applications such as topsheets, barrier leg cuffs, acquisition layers and textile backsheets as well as products for incontinence and feminine hygiene and nonwovens for woundcare applications.
The fifth segment, technical, includes a wide range of smaller niche and specialty segments. One of these areas, battery separators, has benefited from the acquisition of SciMat, Ltd., Swindon, U.K., a world leader in finishing of battery separators.
Another strong market for Freudenberg is bedding and mattress, an area that has appeared on the radars of many nonwovens producers since antiflammability legislation was passed in the U.S. last year and enacted earlier this summer. For its part, Freudenberg offers a full range of tops, sides and bottoms of mattresses that allows bedding manufacturers to achieve the antiflammability standards issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission that mattress materials not combust when subjected to heat for a set amount of time.
“We provide services that our customers would not be able to achieve certification without,” explained Mr. Casey, calling flame blocker mattresses a large market for nonwovens with high margins. “It’s really a challenge to do business in this marketplace because it’s taken so long for these regulations to come to light.”
Beyond, Freudenberg’s five key divisions is its Evolon business, which was first established in 1999 when the company began making the continuous filament spunlace nonwovens on a line in Colmar, France. Since then, the company has been quietly focusing on reducing the weight of this material, which features attractive drape and easy launderability, and promoting its benefits in markets that may not typically use nonwovens. Now, the company is finally looking realistically at plans for a second Evolon production line, probably in 2010, although the size and location of this new line has not been finalized.
“We are seeing Evolon as a great replacement for printable PVC,” Christof Schroeder said. “It is cost competitive and can take a lot of printing.” Additionally, the acoustical benefits of Evolon have made it popular in the automotives market.
Freudenberg’s Novolon technology, which can transform a two-dimensional woven or nonwoven substrate into a three-dimensional product to improve performance in a number of applications, is now being used by sister company Freudenberg Household Products, Augsburg, Germany, to produce household wipes.
Meanwhile, on the global front, Freudenberg continues its aggressive growth strategy throughout the world. In addition to investment in its Asian interlinings, filtration and tufts businesses, the company has recently taken steps to beef up its Latin American presence through a new joint venture with Ted Rad Cuyo (TRC), an Argentinean fiber supplier, called Bicomfiber S.A. Established in June, the new company will produce different types of bicomponent fibers for multiple purposes and applications. TRC, the main shareholder of the new company, is one of the most important producers of polypropylene fiber for the hygiene market in Latin America. “We are proud of the new venture, which enlarges our involvement within the market in Latin America,” said Guillermo Kraves, president of TRC.
Freudenberg Nonwovens Latin America is the nonwovens regional market leader in non-commodity businesses. “We will continue to deliver different types of added value products to our customer. The raw material sourcing is a key part of our growth strategy,” said Juan Carlos Borchardt, president of Freudenberg Nonwovens Latin America. ""With this new joint venture we will be able to offer a complete package of different materials for the markets where we are presently active, being better prepared for the new challenges to come.”
Bicomfiber will be headquartered near Buenos Aires, Argentina, with an annual capacity exceeding 10,000 tons.
And, in a move to help it expand in Eastern Europe, Freudenberg Politex, its roofing and construction unit, opened the group’s first Russian plant in the Zavolzhie, Nizhniy Novgorod region in late 2006. The plant produces nonwoven backing for roofing membranes that have better insulation properties and a service life two to three times longer than that of the roofing boards used to date. This is the world’s largest and most modern production facility of its kind, according to the company.
The new plant belongs to the Freudenberg Politex Business Group headquartered in Novedrate, Italy. Some €15 million has been invested in the project, which was completed in the space of two years and has brought 40 jobs.
When announcing the new plant, Freudenberg executives referred to the region as a great growth area for a number of Freudenberg businesses and while further plans have not been announced for the region, executives have hinted that these are imminent.