Shawcor Ltd. of Toronto plans to take a new name by midyear: Mattr, because: "What we do matters, to our employees, our customers, our communities and all of our stakeholders."
Officials announced the pending rebrand May 12 during the Toronto-based company's first-quarter earnings call.
The announcement comes just after the composite pipe and tank maker said it is expanding, with plans to add plants in Texas and South Carolina, a US$44 million investment. The company also said it is looking to divest one of its three main business segments.
Construction on the plants should begin this year and wrap up in 2024. The company said it expects them to reach normal production levels by 2026, when their combined capacity will be able to generate more than US$73.8 million in incremental revenue annually.
The new Texas site will expand the company's production of spoolable Flexpipe flexible composite pipe. The product is used for water disposal and gathering oil and gas, and in carbon dioxide injection lines, as well as other applications that require corrosion resistance and the ability to withstand high pressure.
Shawcor's Xerxes subsidiary will manufacture fiberglass-reinforced plastic underground storage tanks at the South Carolina facility. The tanks mainly are for retail fuel, stormwater and wastewater markets.
Combined, the plants will total about 300,000 square feet, Shawcor External Communications Director Meghan MacEachern said April 27 by phone. The company hasn't yet disclosed which cities it has selected for the plants.
Shawcor's main segments are Composite Systems, which includes the Flexpipe and Xerxes businesses; Automotive & Industrial, which makes specialty wire and cable, heat-shrink tubing and cold-applied products; and Pipeline & Pipe Services, which doesn't actually make pipe but handles management and engineering services, pipeline performance and integrity management consulting.
MacEachern said the Pipeline & Pipe Services segment is under strategic review, as the company wants to divest that business.
Xerxes already has six plants in the United States and Canada, but the South Carolina facility will be its first in the Southeast.
"The strategic placement of these new facilities positions our Flexpipe business closer to our U.S. customer base and expands Xerxes' ability to serve the eastern U.S. market with underground storage tanks," Martin Perez, president of the Composite Systems segment, said in a news release.
Shawcor, founded more than 50 years ago, employs more than 5,000 worldwide. The company reported 2022 sales of close to US$929.5 million, up from US$841 million the year before, despite divestitures including its Global Poly pipe liner product line.
On March 1, Shawcor announced it had acquired Triton Stormwater Solutions of Brighton, Mich., which it consolidated into Xerxes. Triton supplies composite-based underground infiltration chamber products.
The Composite Systems segment reported 2022 sales of US$390,380, up from US$276,588 the year before.
The company reported Q1 2023 sales of US$269 million, compared with US$198 million for the same period in 2022, an increase of 25 percent that the company attributed primarily to North America. Profit reached US$18.7 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of US$7.12 million for the previous year's comparable quarter.