Global construction and industrial materials maker Saint-Gobain plans to invest $28 million to double the fiberglass products capacity of a plant southeast of Atlanta. The project will add 400 jobs over the next two years, company officials said this week, to a workforce that currently numbers about 70.
Saint-Gobain’s Adfors Americas Inc. subsidiary acquired the four-year-old plant in Dublin, Georgia, nearly two years ago, when it paid $17.5 million in cash to P-D Valmiera Glass USA Corp. as that company was going through Chapter 11. The Adfors team will restart the facility’s furnace, which was idled in 2019, as part of this expansion effort. Georgia economic development officials are supporting Saint-Gobain with more than $12 million in tax credits and incentives, including about $1 million in workforce training.
The investment–which the Associated Press reported will grow annual output 50,000 tons of glass fiber–adds to similar Saint-Gobain initiatives underway that North American CEO Mark Rayfield two months ago told IndustryWeek will help the company feed a housing market hungry for more materials. Among other outposts getting growth capital are insulation plants in California and Georgia and a roofing materials factory in North Carolina. In all, Saint-Gobain is putting to work $400 million on projects that will come online between now and mid-2024.
Saint-Gobain employs 166,000 people in 75 countries and last year rang up sales of more than $50 billion. The company’s Paris-listed shares (Ticker: SGO) rose more than 2% to about $53.50 May 13. Year to date, they’re down about 15%, trimming the company’s market capitalization to about $28 billion.
