Uniboard Expanding Operations in North Carolina

Moncure, NC, Aug. 4, 2008--Laminate flooring company Uniboard Canada will spend $140 million to build a plant and buy an existing plant and upgrade it at a 400 acre site in Moncure.

The current plant owner is ATC Panels, a subsidiary of Chilean holding company Aconcagua Holdings. The project should add 104 employees over the next three years. The plant currently employs 146 people.

Uniboard received a $250,000 grant from the One North Carolina economic development fund as part of the deal. The county is offering tax refunds of as much as 80 percent of Uniboard's property taxes over a five-year period, provided that the company meets its investment and job goals and pays the taxes in the first place.

Uniboard Canada is a subsidiary of German flooring maker Pfleiderer AG. Annual revenue tops $550 million, and the company employs 1,400 people.

Its new Chatham plant will dovetail with the local operations of Pergo, a flooring company that's also owned by Pfleiderer. Pergo, which has administrative offices in Raleigh and a manufacturing facility in Garner.

The new Uniboard plant will make the raw materials for products including furniture, cabinets and hardwood flooring, Cuddihy says. Pergo's Garner plant then will take those raw goods and turn them into products that can be sold into the market.

"We're securing a quality board supply for Pergo," Cuddihy says. However, some of the materials made at the Uniboard plant will be sold to other manufacturers.