Coats, a leading industrial thread manufacturer headquartered in UK, has sold its North America crafts business to Spinrite, a leading craft company and provider of craft knitting yarns in North America. Spinrite produces both branded and private label products and has a diversified presence across multiple channels with a focus on craft retailers.
Approximately 560 North America crafts employees will become part of Spinrite. The manufacturing site and distribution centre in Albany, and the sites in Toccoa and Douglas will transfer to Spinrite ownership. The sale includes the well-known crafts brands Red Heart, Coats & Clark, Aunt Lydia, and Susan Bates. Anchor, Dual Duty XP, and J&P Coats will be licensed for varying terms, Coats said in a report.
“We are proud of our 120 years of crafts heritage in North America and the long association we have had with crafters but the crafting market has evolved in the past decade. This requires a higher degree of specialisation, scale, innovation and digital capabilities to succeed. The sale of our stand-alone North America crafts will have a stronger future with Spinrite. It also allows us to focus complete attention on our high performing business-to-business global apparel and footwear, and performance materials segments,” Rajiv Sharma, Group Chief Executive, Coats said.
The initial cash consideration payable at completion is $37 mn. The sale which is conditional upon a limited number of conditions usual for this type of transaction, is anticipated to complete during the coming weeks. Proceeds from the sale will be used to make further value accretive acquisitions in the strategic focus areas of high-tech performance materials and software solutions businesses.
