Where are the world's three largest fiberglass companies now?
For a long time, the industry has generally considered the three global glass fiber giants to be OC Group of the United States, Saint-Gobain Group of France, and PPG Group of the United States. OC Group is the inventor of glass fiber, as well as the inventor of high-strength S2 glass fiber, fluorine-free and boron-free glass fiber, and the in-line chopped strand process, consistently leading global innovation in glass fiber composite materials technology.
OC Group's other two main businesses are building materials (roofing materials and insulation materials). Saint-Gobain Group is a Fortune 500 company and the world's largest building materials company. Saint-Gobain pioneered the development of high-modulus (H) glass fiber for wind turbine blades and achieved furnace production. It is also the inventor of the thermoplastic product Twin-tex. PPG is an American Fortune 500 company that previously had three main industrial segments (chemical coatings, float glass, and glass fiber). PPG has consistently been an industry leader in the efficiency of direct spinning in large furnaces (especially direct spinning of epoxy resins) and textile spinning. These three fiberglass companies undoubtedly represented the highest level of technology, products, and innovation in the fiberglass industry at the time, making significant contributions to the development of the global fiberglass industry. In 2007, the fiberglass composites market was booming, but Saint-Gobain announced its complete withdrawal from the fiberglass composites business. The Belgian and Norwegian plants were divested (3B), and four kilns (total capacity 160,000 tons) at the Texas plant in the United States were also closed. The remaining fiberglass business was merged into OC, retaining only the industrial spinning business. In 2017, on the eve of the JEC exhibition, we visited Saint-Gobain headquarters. We were received by the Senior Vice President of the Saint-Gobain Group (who had served as CFO in 2007 and was one of the decision-makers in the decision to withdraw from the fiberglass business). We specifically asked Saint-Gobain why it was withdrawing from the fiberglass business. He explained that Saint-Gobain's fiberglass business was on par with leading American companies in terms of technology and products. Saint-Gobain's fiberglass plants were mainly located in Europe, where production costs were higher than their American counterparts, and the European market was slightly smaller than the American market; another major reason was the rapid development of fiberglass production capacity in China. We also have a factory in Hangzhou and understand the situation in China.
China's fiberglass products have a greater cost advantage, so it was only a matter of time before Saint-Gobain exited the fiberglass composites business, and it's better to exit sooner rather than later. These two main factors prompted the Saint-Gobain Group to begin considering its fiberglass business at that time. PPG began considering how to exit the fiberglass business as early as 2007. The company first exited the flat glass business. The plan to exit the fiberglass business was implemented in two steps. First, in 2016, PPG sold its European fiberglass business (factories in the UK and the Netherlands) to Japan's NEG Corporation and sold its stakes in two joint ventures in Asia (Shandong Zibo Jinjing Glass and Taiwan Bicheng Glass). In 2017, PPG sold all of its fiberglass business in the United States (including its R&D center) to NEG Corporation. This was the final step in PPG's long-standing strategy of divesting non-core businesses. On February 9, 2024, OC announced that it would exit the fiberglass composites business, retaining only the wet-formed mat (building materials) business. At the same time, OC Group announced its acquisition of Masonite (whose main business is building windows and doors and system solutions) for $3.9 billion. This acquisition represents the most significant strategic restructuring of OC Group's business structure in nearly a decade. OC Group has consistently focused on strategic opportunities in building materials and industrial insulation materials and system solutions, having previously acquired a Finnish fiberglass wet felt business and invested in a US rock wool insulation business.
As one of the world's three largest fiberglass companies, OC Group has always maintained a leading position in terms of production scale, product variety, and R&D innovation. Regardless of how OC Group exits the composite fiberglass business in the future, its impact on the industry is currently difficult to assess, prompting us to think more deeply and comprehensively about the future development of the industry. Saint-Gobain and OC Group share a commonality in their business restructuring: they can both abandon the composite fiberglass business, but they can make their building materials and system solutions better, larger, and more comprehensive.
