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A massive French provider of “light building materials” is deepening its presence in Georgia with two investments totaling more than $128 million announced within the span of a week.
Those come on top of another $30 million project in Athens quietly announced last November by Paris-based Saint-Gobain, which traces its roots as a manufacturer back to the French monarch Louis XIV in 1665.
Now, the company boasts 166,000 employees in 75 countries generating sales of more than 44 billion euros from products like insulation, façade panels, siding and textiles like patio screens. The company has long been one of the largest French job-creators in the state.
That trans-Atlantic commitment grew stronger this week as the company said it would create 400 new positions on a $28 million investment at a fiberglass plant in Dublin, Ga., where Saint-Gobain’s ADFORS textile brand is making heat-protection and thermal insulation materials used in the automotive, ship-building and power-generation sectors.
In an example of the creative destruction that can occur in foreign-invested facilities, the ADFORS investment will bring back on line a furnace installed by Latvia’s Valmiera Glass, which originally built the facility with a $20 million investment in 2014. Two years later, Valmiera announced a $90 million expansion and plans to build a state-of-the-art furnace and hire 450 workers, netting it the “deal of the year” award from the Georgia Economic Developers Association.
By 2018, Valmiera’s U.S. subsidiary had become the largest single employer in central Georgia’s Laurens County, drawing a visit from Latvia’s then-ambassador, Andris Tekmanis, in the same year the country appointed an honorary consul in Atlanta.
But the expansion evidently proceeded too quickly, as Valmiera abruptly laid off 350 workers and filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after failing to secure an investor to stem losses related to the plant’s startup and operation.
Saint-Gobain bought the Dublin facility in 2020, despite being unable to visit due to COVID-19, and has been hiring as it has ramped up production. Restarting the furnace will enable the French company to double North American capacity for melting, extruding and winding fiberglass thread, the raw material that goes into its heat protection products. The investment in Dublin attracted $12 million in tax incentives from the state, plus customized workforce training valued at $1 million from Georgia Quick Start. Hiring starts now and will continue into 2024.
This week, Saint-Gobain said it would begin a $100 million expansion of its roofing shingles business under the CertainTeed LLC subsidiary in Peachtree City, part of a previously announced investment of $400 million into U.S. production over the next two to three years.
The new infusion will double capacity at that 23-acre, Fayette County plant, adding 65,000 square feet of warehouse and manufacturing space while cutting emissions by 14 percent per unit, in keeping with a strategy to improve sustainability in its processes. Some $5 million in state incentives were promised as CertainTeed grows the workforce by 27 jobs from 83 to 110.
CertainTeed also has an Athens plant that has been in the community since 1975 and produces loose-fill insulation. That factory will get a $30 million upgrade to add a new production line, creating 20 new jobs when the new line is delivered in late 2023. Having begun in 1975, the Athens plant has 191 employees.
Across the three plants, Saint-Gobain’s units will eventually employ at least 700 people in Georgia upon reaching its job-creation targets.
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