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1927
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Hill & Nichols, a small wool combing operation, is
founded in Massachusetts. It is later
renamed Nichols & Company.
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1954
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Nichols & Company establishes Wellman Combing Company in
Johnsonville, SC, the first wool combing plant in SC. Wellman
exited the Wool business in 1999.
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1965
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Wellman Combing Company begins to produce nylon and, shortly
thereafter, polyester staple fibers and plastic resins from recycled raw
materials. Today, the manufacture of
polyester and nylon fibers from both petrochemical and recycled raw materials
is one of Wellman’s principal businesses.
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1968
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Plastics becomes a separate division to manufacture nylon
engineering resins from recycled raw materials. It is now called the Engineering
Resins Division.
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1969
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The corporate name, Nichols & Company, is changed to Wellman, Inc.
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1972
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Wellman International Limited (WIL) is established in
Mullagh, Republic of Ireland. This
operation produces polyester and nylon staple fibers from recycled raw materials
for various European markets.
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1979
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Wellman establishes a PET soft drink bottle recycling
facility in Johnsonville, SC and begins to recycle PET bottles from states with
bottle deposit laws for use as raw material in its polyester fiber operation. Today, Wellman is the nation’s largest, most
advanced PET recycler, recycling PET bottles obtained from bottle deposit and
curbside programs and from post industrial material.
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October 1983
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Sacks Industries of Clark, NJ, a nonwovens manufacturer and
fiber broker, acquires 50% of Wellman. Mr. Tom Duff, COO of Sacks, becomes VP and COO of the combined company.
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August 1985
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Wellman and Sacks Industries are purchased in an LBO by a
group of company managers and financial investors. The new company, incorporated in Delaware, changes its name to
Wellman, Inc. Mr. Duff becomes
President and CEO.
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June 1987
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Wellman becomes a public company by registering common stock
with NASDAQ under the symbol WLMN and offering stock to the public at $10.25*
per share.
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September 1988
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Wellman stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange
under the symbol WLM and is offered at $17.50* in a secondary public stock
offering.
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November 1989
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Wellman completes the acquisition of Fiber Industries, Inc.
(FI), a leading domestic manufacturer of premium polyester textile fibers
marketed under the Fortrel® brand. FI’s
operations and offices in Darlington, SC, Fayetteville and Charlotte, NC and
New York, NY are now part of Wellman’s Fibers Group. The acquisition doubled Wellman’s asset and revenue base and
positioned it as a premier polyester fiber producer.
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April 1990
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WIL completes construction and commences operation of
Wellman’s first European PET bottle recycling facility in Spijk,
Netherlands. Like Wellman’s
Johnsonville, SC operation, PET bottles recycled at this facility are used as
raw material by WIL to manufacturer polyester fiber. This has made Wellman the global leader in PET bottle recycling.
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August 1990
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Wellman acquires New England CRInc. (CRInc), a leader in the
design, construction and operation of
advanced materials recovery facilities (MRFs). CRInc, which built the first highly mechanized U.S. MRF, has exclusive
rights to a patented German recyclables sortation technology.
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February 1992
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Wellman purchases a recently completed, state-of-the-art
polyester fiber plant in Marion, SC. Like Wellman’s Johnsonville, SC plant, the Marion facility uses waste
raw materials to manufacture polyester fiber.
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November 1992
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Wellman acquires Creative Forming, Inc. (CFI), a
manufacturer of thermoformed plastic packaging, primarily for the consumer
products industry, and PET sheet. CFI
utilizes virgin and recycled PET, such as that produced by Wellman, as
feedstock and is believed to be the largest user of recycled PET in its
industry.
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May 1993
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Wellman purchases the PET bottle recycling operation of Day
Products, Inc. in Bridgeport, NJ. Day
processes postconsumer PET soft drink bottles into PET flake and pellets,
which are sold to various end markets.
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1994
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Wellman enters PET resin market with PermaClear®. By the end of 1999, this business had grown to 1 billion pounds and is
now one of Wellman’s principal businesses.
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December 1995
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Wellman acquires the European PET Resin business of Akzo
Nobel in Emmens, the Netherlands, thus establishing a European presence.
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1996
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Wellman announces the Gulf Coast of Mississippi (Pearl
River) as the site of a new world class greenfield PET resin and fiber plant.
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1996
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Wellman receives FDA clearance for food contact application
of a postconsumer recycle product trademarked EcoClear®.
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June 1996
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Wellman’s second European bottle recycling center is opened
in Verdun, France.
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1997
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Wellman focuses its growth on PET resin and polyester
fiber. DAY products recycling facility
is closed and New England CRInc.and CFI are divested. Likewise, the nonwoven
operations in Charlotte, NC and Commerce, CA are divested.
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December 1998
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Wellman International closes the Wellman Fibres, Ltd. subsidiary
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February 1999
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Wellman announces the successful start-up of the first
production line at its new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, the Pearl
River Plant, located in the Port Bienville Industrial Park on the Gulf Coast of
Mississippi. The facility produces
Wellman’s PermaClear® PET resins.
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May 1999
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Wellman starts up its second PET Resin line at the Pearl
River Mississippi facility.
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August 1999
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The Wool division is closed as well as Wellman’s New York office.
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March 2000
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The Pearl River staple fiber line starts producing high tenacity, low denier staple fiber.
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* Stock price adjusted for June 1989 two-for-one stock
split.
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