From the Sector

B.I.G. has signed an agreement with Australian B2B flooring wholesaler to acquire its complete range of activities. Through this acquisition, both companies will strengthen their growth opportunities in both soft, resilient and hard flooring in Australia and New Zealand.

CEO Pol Deturck comments: “This acquisition will provide great opportunities for all our stakeholders, especially our customers, suppliers and employees. Both B.I.G. and Signature have solid positions as leaders in the flooring industry and a shared commitment to sustainability, product innovation, design and customer service.”

Signature Floors is an Australian B2B flooring wholesaler serving retailers, commercial contractors, architect-designers and end-users in Australia and New Zealand. Founded in 1989, the company has 120 employees and is owned by 2 family shareholders which are both active in the company. Signature has offices, warehouses and showrooms in Melbourne and Auckland spread over 3 locations.

Together, B.I.G. and Signature will integrate their sales and business activities over the coming months, ensuring business continuity for customers, partners, suppliers and employees.

Both companies expect to close the transaction at the end of April 2023.

Fully integrated production lines from single source suppliers have increasingly become the norm in the textile industry and make complete sense in meeting today’s complex supply chain needs, according to TMAS – the Swedish Textile Machinery Association.

“Over the past few decades, textile mills have transitioned from consisting of collections of individual machines serviced and maintained largely by in-house mechanics as well as separate supplier companies for each part of the production line,” says TMAS Secretary General Therese Premler-Andersson. “Those in-house engineering service teams have diminished over the years, while the introduction of electronic drive systems in the 1980s and 90s also put an increased emphasis on the need for third party electrical engineers, operating separately to the machine builders.

“Subsequently, mechanical machines and electronic drive systems became much more integrated, and more recently, with the advent of digitalisation, entire production lines are becoming centrally controlled with remote, instantaneous connections to their suppliers for service and maintenance.

“In this context, the integration of machinery and automation specialists as single-source suppliers makes perfect sense, while partnerships between machine builders and their customers have never been more important.”

The recent acquisition of Nowo textile machinery from its previous owner, Brandstones Ab Oy, by TMAS member ACG Kinna, she adds, is a good example of this general trend.

Nowo, headquartered in Turku, Finland, designs, manufactures and exports high-end textile production machinery mainly for the fibre processing industry. At the end of the 1980s it introduced the highly successful Nowo Vac pillow filling system, which has been its best-selling system, alongside the Noworoll ball fibre machine, introduced in the 1990s.

Nowo’s machine range covers the entire production process from bale opening to weighing and filling, and complete production lines are tailored to the specific needs of customers. The company can also deliver individual machines such as bale openers, cards, cross-lappers, pickers, mixing devices, material silos, sucking devices, anti-static units etc. Seven patents cover the company’s technologies.

Founded in 1977, ACG Kinna Automatic, based in Skene in Sweden, specialises in customised and cost-efficient solutions for the production of pillows and quilts. All of its design, manufacturing and final line testing is carried out in Sweden and the reliability and longevity of its machines has earned it the trust of the world’s largest furniture and home decoration retailers and Europe’s largest manufacturer of pillows and duvets, among many customers.

Archroma announces a successful first year on the U.S. home care market with its whiteness solutions for laundry and detergents.

Archroma acquired in December 2019 the BASF's stilbene-based optical brightening agents (OBA) business for liquid and powder laundry detergent applications. The acquisition included the OBA technology, portfolio and manufacturing unit at Ankleshwar, India.

Since then, Archroma has mobilized its global experts, technologies and know-how, to design a holistic solutions portfolio for household, industrial & institutional cleaning (HI&I) aimed to support detergent manufacturers.

The portfolio now includes solutions for whiteness, coloration, stain removal, fabric softening, as well as sequestering agents and surfactants, which can be used in applications such as multipurpose cleaning powders, detergent powders, dish wash tablets and liquids, laundry liquids and fabric softeners, and hard surface cleaners.

Archroma used its experience working with manufacturers and brands in the textile industry to enter the US detergent markets for the very first time, and has been able to gain a significant position with most key laundry detergent manufacturers with its solutions for whiteness.

In particular, the company reports special interest from U.S. detergent brands and manufacturers for its Leucophor® 5BMGX, as this optical brightener allows them to achieve high levels of whiteness with a blueish undertone. The product is also highly soluble in water and stable in oxidative environment.