Combining strengths in nonwovens Jacob Holm

COMBINING STRENGTHS IN NONWOVENS

When the 200 year-old Danish nonwovens company Jacob Holm acquired DuPont’s Sontara® business last year it created a new industry leader in spunlaced fabrics and transformed its market reach. CEO Martin Mikkelsen spoke to Peter Mercer about the opportunities for the new group.

“2014 was a transformative year for Jacob Holm,” says CEO of the Group Martin Mikkelsen. “We followed through with the ambitious growth strategy that we had initiated in 2012 through pursuing both organic and inorganic tracks. We completed the construction of a new production line at our US plant in North Carolina and brought into the group the global Sontara® nonwovens business that we acquired from DuPont.

“The combination of Jacob Holm and Sontara® creates a new industry leader in innovation in spunlaced nonwoven fabrics with a broader range of advanced technologies and complementary strengths in global markets. Jacob Holm has a long-established position in consumer products for personal care and hygiene while Sontara® is strong in the industrial and medical market segments.

“The acquisition of Sontara® also brings with it some 240 employees at the former DuPont sites in Old Hickory, Tennessee, and at Asturias in Spain, roughly doubling the Jacob Holm Group workforce and adding to the 65 new employees that we have taken on following the start-up of the new line at our plant in Asheville, North Carolina. We are keenly looking forward to working with our new colleagues and partners in taking the Jacob Holm Group to a new level of global pre-eminence.”

From ropes to fabrics

Founded in Copenhagen in 1794, Jacob Holm is today one of the world’s leading nonwoven roll and finished goods manufacturers. Early in its history the business diversified into rope manufacturing to serve Denmark’s important shipping industry, and in time the rope factory was extended with the introduction of two spinning works which produced a wide range of products, including threads, linen and sisal strands – even clothes lines. These were followed by soft fibre products, made from jute, flax and hemp, for ropes and strings and for the textile industry.

It was in the 1950s that the company began the production of synthetic fibres and by the first decade of the 21st century its business was focused solely on the development of new, value-added spunlaced applications. With the acquisition of the Sontara® business Jacob Holm now has four state-of-the-art production plants. Its original factory at Soultz, France, was established in 1996, and its US plant in North Carolina started operation in 2005.

Two brands, one company

To mark the bringing together of the Jacob Holm and Sontara® businesses the group has announced a new brand identity to position it for further global growth. There is to be a new website, new logo and message platform for the Jacob Holm and Sontara® business units. Both units will be managed as independent brands but they will share the same distinctive blue and red icon – recalling a ship’s flag – to make clear their affiliation to the Jacob Holm Group.

“The new brand identity is much more than just a change of logo, colour palette and messages. It represents an evolution of Sontara® and Jacob Holm as brands and how our products are perceived,” says Martin Mikkelsen. “The branding and structure that we will communicate represents our unique position in the industry with a distinct identity and strong visible brands that underline the total value we provide to our customers.”

The combination of a single brand identity across the separate business units is particularly important because the major applications of the products of Sontara® and Jacob Holm are essentially different even though both are leading players in innovations across the nonwovens industry. It also reflects the added complexity and global reach of the new Group. “We are now operating in more regions of the world – integrating sales offices in places like Argentina, Mexico, Malaysia, China and Japan, for example – and we are enhancing our management strength in key areas such as product development, marketing and IT,” explains Mr Mikkelsen. “

Complementary strengths

The core technology of the Jacob Holm Group is hydroentangled spunlace, a process that was originated, in fact, by DuPont’s Sontara® business in 1973. It is a mechanical bonding process in which fibres are entangled by means of high pressure water jets. Patterning can be achieved by means of patterned drums or belts which cause the fibres to form a negative image of the drum. The key characteristics of spunlaced fabrics include softness, drape, conformability, absorbency and relatively high strength. Unlike many other nonwoven fabrics Jacob Holm and Sontara® products are free of silicone, binders, fillers and chemical additives.

Jacob Holm itself has a long-established strength in the consumer market with a wide range of wipes, sheets etc for personal care

CEO Martin Mikkelsen

(baby and personal wipes, moist toilet tissues), hygiene (diaper components, feminine care) and industrial (household, food service and hospital wipes). Sontara®’s key markets are in health care applications (surgical gowns and drapes, wound care, tapes and bandages, etc), beauty care (facial masks) as well as in high performance wipes for critical cleaning in the manufacturing, automotive, aerospace and food sectors. Sontara® also serves speciality markets with products such as contamination control wipes for electronics and pharma cleanrooms, cleaning fabrics for the printing industry and window treatments and mattress covers for home furnishing.

“The way in which the two businesses of the new Jacob Holm Group address essentially different segments brings us a greatly enhanced position across all our global markets and reinforces our pre-eminent position in the USA as well as in Europe,” explains Martin Mikkelsen, “and yet both parts of the group are still working within the core technologies in which we have so many years of experience.”

Grasim Industries Limited

Grasim Industries Limited, a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, ranks amongst India’s largest private sector companies, with a consolidated net revenue of Rs.293 billion and consolidated net profit of Rs.21 billion (FY 2014).

Grasim started as a textile manufacturer in 1948. Today its core businesses are Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) and Cement, contributing over 90 per cent of its revenues and operating profits. It is also present in Chemicals which is essentially a backward integration of VSF. Driving innovation

“What we are now focusing on is driving innovation across all our processes and products. Sontara®, for example, has been doing important work in reducing lint and on the applications of fluochemicals that is being carried over into all the Group’s production activities while Jacob Holm is continuing its innovations in lightweight fabrics. Our new line in N. Carolina, for example, is focused on the production of moist toilet tissue – a particularly high growth sector – and we are leading the field in softer, more stretchable baby diapers, and at Sontara® in better performing facial masks for ‘home spas’ and in advanced cleaning products for highly specialised applications in aerospace and electronics.

“The key growth strategy of the group is to develop in niche markets where performance is critical and where we can offer added value. One example is in paint shops in the auto industry where our wipes can ensure that the spaying process works at optimal efficiency and the line does not have to stop to rectify problems.”

The key task for the Jacob Holm Group management team this year is to complete the analysis of the company’s growth trajectory and ensure that all its assets and capabilities are aligned with the most promising market opportunities.

“This year we are consolidating the new enlarged group and working with our new, young management team to ensure that all aspects of the business are working in the same direction,” says Mr Mikkelsen. “In 2016 we will be able to start to validate our strategy for global growth and show the world just how innovative a 200 year-old business can be.” n