Poly-America to select Southeast site
GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS - Film and bag producer Poly-America Inc. will invest as much as $100 million to open a plant in the Southeast.
A Poly-America official confirmed a Nov. 9 report in The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., but would provide no details.
George Hall, the company's vice president for manufacturing, told the newspaper a site in Lexington County, S.C., is one of four Poly-America is considering for a plant. The company's final decision is not more than six months away.
Poly-America will make trash bags and gardening supplies at the site, which could employ nearly 500 at its peak. The firm produces polyethylene construction film, trash bags, stretch and shrink film and geomembrane liners.
As previously reported, the firm in January will open a 380,000-square-foot film extrusion plant in Henderson, Nev., which represents an investment of about $63 million. That plant will serve as a model for the Southeast facility, Hall said in the report.
Poly-America operates extrusion plants in Grand Prairie, where it is based, and Cottage Grove, Minn., and a materials reprocessing center in Mont Belvieu, Texas.
Ball to boost Iowa container capacity
BLOOMFIELD, COLO. - Ball Corp. of Bloomfield will spend $7.4 million to add a blow molding line to its site in Ames, Iowa.
The line will be able to produce 900,000 bottles per day, and is the sixth expansion at the plant since Ball opened it in 1996, according to the Ames Economic Development Commission.
``We just needed more capacity,'' said Barbara Farson, Ball communications coordinator, in a Nov. 10 telephone interview.
The firm will add 12 employees to its base of 190, processing PET into beverage containers.
In what officials have called a transition year for Ball, the company has invested in its best-performing businesses to remain competitive, said R. David Hoover, chief executive officer.
The company reported third-quarter profit of $79.3 million on sales of $1.58 billion, compared with a $101.7 million profit on sales of $1.48 billion in the third quarter of 2004.
According to Plastics News' 2005 blow molders ranking, Ball had $401 million in North American blow molding sales among five plants with 725 employees.
Falcon ends participation in pipe recall
STAMFORD, CONN. - To the chagrin of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Falcon HC Holding Corp. is pulling out of a recall program to replace faulty Ultravent heating pipes.
Bethesda, Md.-based CPSC announced the move Nov. 7.
The recall began in Canada in 1995 and spread to the United States in 1998, as public-safety officials became concerned about reports of carbon-monoxide poisoning deaths.
Consumers with Ultravent pipes now will have to pay the part of replacement costs the firm originally agreed to pay - about 40 percent - which equates to about $250 per heating system.
According to a CPSC news release, the recall was designed to replace about 250,000 plastic pipe systems attached to gas or propane furnaces or boilers. Some of the pipes were prone to crack and leak carbon monoxide. As of Oct. 1, about 93,000 pipes had been replaced.
Stamford-based Falcon, because of some ownership changes, no longer is legally obligated to honor the recall agreement.
Venture Holdings' new name: Cadence
STERLING HEIGHTS, MICH. - The 26 plants that once made up Venture Holdings Co. LLC finally have a new name to go with their new ownership - Cadence Innovation LLC.
The auto supplier had operated under the interim name New Venture Holdings LLC since it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.
The Cadence Innovation name will be phased in during the next six months, said Chief Executive Officer Jerry Mosingo in a Nov. 10 news release. The name covers all of the operations in North America and the firm's European holdings, now called Peguform France and Peguform Bohemia.
The firm had operated under Chapter 11 protection of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit for two years - before creditors of the former Venture took over as owners of the Sterling Heights-based company.