SBA Home, a furniture manufacturer that is part of the SBA Group in Lithuania, is planning to launch production of storage furniture in the United States, says the company’s CEO, Jurgita Radzevice. She says that the ambitious goal is to open a new factory on the southeast coast of America in October 2025.
“This is a very ambitious plan, and we hope that the plant will start operations a year from now on October 1,” Radzevice told the Vz.lt business news website.
The company has selected three potential sites for the factory out of 80 that were proposed at first, and it hopes to pick the final location soon, the CEO said. SBA Home plans to buy land with an existing factory that could be used to produce furniture.
“We plan to take the final decision about the building during the latter half of October, and then we’ll focus on retrofitting, bringing in equipment and installing it,” says Radzevice. “We plan to mostly produce storage furniture.”
SBA Home chose the southeastern part of America because of shorter supply chains which involve three major suppliers of wood panels. A seaport is nearby, and major buyers are also present.
“We gravitated toward the southeast and the east coast because there are three major players there – Kronospan, Aurauco and Egger,” says Radzevice. “That means that our location is right in the middle of the supply triangle.”
The CEO went on to say that the new factory will have approximately 450,000 m2 of floorspace. It will be highly automated and will employ some 200 workers on three or four shifts. Radzevice did not disclose the sum of the planned investment.
SBA Home saw net profits drop 17% to EUR 2.9 million last year, with revenues down by 16% to EUR 486.6 million. SBA Home’s primary furniture buyer is IKEA.
Source: BNS
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