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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I’m K. Schipper with the latest in hard surfaces industry news from Radio Stone Update.
0:33
Polycor announced it will acquire full ownership of ROCAMAT, France’s leading producer of natural stone. Terms of the transaction, announced on Feb. 27, weren’t revealed.
The deal, subject to various approvals in France, comes five years after Quebec City-based Polycor entered a minority-share partnership with the French stone producer. Founded in 1857, ROCAMAT owns almost 30 limestone quarries in France, operates four processing plants, and employs nearly 160 people.
The shareholders of the ROCAMAT Group offered the opportunity to acquire the company, which was accepted by Polycor France Holding, a subsidiary of the Polycor Group.
The acquisition is part of Polycor’s strategy to consolidate its position as a natural-stone industry leader and strengthen its presence in Europe and internationally. In 2018, Polycor France partnered with ROCAMAT, taking over operations at five quarries in Burgundy and the quarrying rights to a quarry in the Gard region.
Stone extracted from ROCAMAT’s quarries and processed in its factories goes into blocks and slabs, flooring and facades, marble work and cut and carved elements that are sold on the construction market.
Polycor CEO Patrick Perus calls the acquisition a natural step in his company’s growth. He notes that since its founding in 1987, Polycor has built alliances with companies that share its values, while ROCAMAT’s more than 170 years of expertise, knowledge and mastery of natural stone is unmatched in France.
Perus says, “The acquisition of ROCAMAT would allow us to enrich our offering by proposing an even more comprehensive portfolio of products that meet unparalleled standards of quality.”
Pierre Brousse, ROCAMAT’s majority shareholder, says the outlook for the natural stone market in France calls for high-capacity industrial investments.
He adds, “We consider it wise to entrust such execution to the world leader in ornamental stone, which, I am confident will know better than anyone how to develop the company’s capabilities.”
French regulations require the acquisition to undergo several reviews and approvals, including an information-consultation process with the representative bodies of ROCAMAT’s personnel.
3:08
The latest possibility of transshipping Chinese-made quartz surfaces through a third country has again appeared, with allegations being made against an exporter from Taiwan.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection – the CBP – will now monitor shipments of quartz-surface products from Taiwan to LTT International Trading Co. of Chino, Calif., as part of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation.
CBP informed both LTT and Cambria Company LLC of the actions in a Feb. 13 letter from Kristina Horgan, acting director the Enforcement Operations Division of the Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate of the department’s office of trade.
Cambria filed allegations against LTT last October, noting numerous shipments from Taiwan through Cheng Jug Enterprises Ltd. Cambria asserts that, rather than being a manufacturing facility, Cheng Jug’s address appeared to be an apartment building.
The Le Sueur, Minn.-based Cambria also alleges that Cheng Jug also exported Chinese-made mattresses and diamond sawblades from the same address. Both those products are also under unfair-trade tariffs.
Cambria alleges that LTT imported Chinese-made quartz through Cheng Jug from September 2021 to June of last year. The materials were tagged as made in Taiwan by several companies in a practice known as transshipping.
CBP noted the documents supplied by LTT concerning the manufacturing of the surfaces contained multiple discrepancies and the certificates of origin couldn’t be validated on Taiwan’s foreign-trade website.
6:03
The Australian government has taken another step toward possibly banning engineered stone from that country. Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke says he and his state and territory counterparts asked Safe Work Australia to consider what a future ban would look like.
The group of workplace health and safety ministers met last week to discuss whether to ban the product because of the risk to people who work with it developing silicosis. As in the U.S., engineered stone is a popular material used for countertops in kitchens and bathrooms, but depending on the manufacturer can also contain high levels of silica.
Burke said the ministers unanimously agreed to begin the steps toward implementing a national ban but admitted the process doesn’t move quickly. The group agreed to meet again in six months, or sooner if the report from Safe Work Australia is ready before then.
The national construction union has also called for engineered stone to be banned. The union said nearly one in four workers exposed to silica dust before 2018 has been diagnosed with silicosis or other related diseases.
Safe Work Australia has also been asked to look at how to deal with material that will need to be moved or demolished in the future.
7:21
Feb. 23 was National Tile Day, and as part of its observance, Coverings announced the top ten tile trends for 2023. The trends were gathered by the sponsors of Coverings: Ceramics of Italy, Tile Council of North America and Tile of Spain.
The trends also provide the overall theme for Coverings 2023, which will be held April 18-21 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.
The newest and most-admired styles on offer at Coverings 2023 can be summarized to include: bricks, cemented, cobbled, creative uses of wood look, Emerald City, enduring elegance, Mother Nature-inspired indoor-outdoor, sensory seduction, the ‘70s, and undulated.
A wider look on tile trends will be held at Coverings on April 18 beginning at 8 a.m. Registration for coverings is free. For more information or to register, go to info@coverings.com.
08:28
The National Tile Contractors Association – the NTCA – will travel to the West Coast in March for porcelain-panel training sessions. The industry group is sponsoring five free day-long events in California and one in Nevada on Gauged Porcelain Tile Panel – or GPTP – work.
The GPTP/Slabs Training includes instruction on new tile industry standards and methods for installing GPTP, how GPTP is made, where it can be used and special tools, setting materials and techniques required to install it.
Although workshops have already taken place in San Leandro and Santa Ana, Calif., sessions are scheduled March 13 in West Covina; March 17 in Downey, and March 23 in San Diego, as well as March 30 in South Summerlin, Nev.
Registration is limited, although if a class is full, your name will be added to a waiting list and you’ll be contacted if a seat becomes available. For more information, to go www.tile-assn.com/events/event_list.asp.
9:46
The annual Xiamen Stone Fair will return in early June, and so will attendees from outside China. The 23rd China Xiamen International Stone Fair will be held June 5-8 at Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center.
The show will display stone raw blocks, slabs, stone products, machinery and tools. It will also include other events such as the Global Master Architects Forum, the Stone Infinite Product Design Show and the World Stone Congress. The show – considered the world’s largest stone-related event before COVID-19 – will include attendees from outside China for the first time since 2019.
Registration is free, and foreign visitors should register as soon as possible, mainly because show registration will include an invitation letter from Xiamen Stone Fair, which is one of the documents needed to obtain a travel visa. And visitors will need to apply for a visa this year, even if they had one from a previous year because those are not currently being recognized as valid.
The only health screening required at this time is a negative PCR result within 48 hours of departure for China. For more information, go to https://stonefair.org.cn/index.html
In other news around the industry….
11:18
Flow International Corporation announces that it has promoted Brian Sherick to president, effective immediately. Sherick, a 26-year Flow employee, most recently served as global vice president of sales for the developer and manufacturer of ultrahigh-pressure waterjet cutting.
In his new position, Sherick will take on a pivotal role in strategic and operational management while continuing to foster a meaningful waterjet community within Flow and with customers and partners.
11:51
And, Armen Stone LLC, a North Carolina start-up stone working company, has announced it will open its first facility in Burlington, N.C. The company is purchasing the former Carolina Box Company building and will invest $3 million in the facility, creating 33 new jobs over two years.
The company plans to renovate the vacant manufacturing building’s almost 66,000 ft2². On completion of the renovation, Armen Stone will focus on countertop fabrication and slab distribution, concentrating on business-to-business sales. The company received a $200,000 Building reuse Grant from the state Department of Commerce to help offset the $564,000 it expects to spend renovating the building.
Remember, the latest issue of Hard-Surface Report is available at www.hardsurfacereport.com. Our newsletter, Slab & Sheet, comes out on alternate Wednesdays. For a transcript of this issue of Radio Stone Update, go to www.radiostoneupdate.com.
For Radio Stone Update, I’m K. Schipper and we’ll see you here again soon.
