A company based in Galicia, Spain, has bought the Tifton Extrusions plant, formerly Tifton Aluminum on Southwell Boulevard, and it could generate about 200 jobs, says Brian Marlowe, president of the Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce.

“Tifton Extrusions has now been purchased by a Spanish company and that facility will be put back on the tax books. The company has already added about 50 jobs in the last couple of weeks, and we expect them to add close to 200 jobs,” Marlowe told Tifton City Council and the Tift County Board of Commissioners in separate meetings Monday night.

“The name of the business is changing to Tifton Aluminum Extrusions,” Marlow said.

In 2008, the Tift County Development Authority had purchased the building and equipment formerly known as Tifton Aluminum from Alcoa for $2 million and in turn entered into a 10-year lease agreement with Ohio-based BRT Extrusions, which renamed the plant Tifton Extrusions Inc.

According to Economia, a Spanish business publication, the Exlabesa Group, a privately run family business with more than 35 years experience in the industry, bought the Tifton plant for an undisclosed sum.

In its June 14 edition, Economia revealed the purchase. The Tifton Gazette received a copy of the article that day. The article in Spanish did not quote any officials.

When contacted that day, Marlowe asked the Gazette to delay announcing the sale because he said it wasn’t yet completed, and he was awaiting word from the company to make the formal announcement.

However, word began leaking out. On June 23, Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine cited the purchase. Last Thursday, American Metal Market magazine, on its web site, noted that “the purchase of an operating extrusion plant in Tifton, Ga., by Spanish extrusion major Exlabesa is a bullish sign for the recovering U.S. sector, sources in the aluminum market told AMM.”

Exlabesa has four other holdings across Europe but none in the United States before this purchase, which Marlowe said was officially completed June 24.

According to the Spanish business journal, Exlabesa’s new production plant in Tifton has four aluminum extrusion presses; smelting, coating and finishing plants; and can produce 24,000 tons of extruded aluminum a year. Currently, production is destined for the construction industry, “although Exlabesa brings cutting-edge technology and new product lines in a range of hard alloys that can be introduced to other segments of the market,” the Spanish journal noted.

The publication said the company’s medium-term goal is to manage a third of its sales in Euros, a third in dollars and the rest in other currencies. Exlabesa has an aluminum extrusion plant in England, one in Morocco and another in Poland, as well as three in Spain. In 2010, 82 percent of its production was destined for international markets.

In a BusinessWeek profile, Exlabesa is said to offer “aluminum profiles for lifts, heat sinks, transportation, and naval construction applications; and imitation wood and veneer lines, painted and anodized sections, and polyamide strips, as well as custom-made profiles.

“The company offers its products in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic,” BusinessWeek said.

Also Monday, Marlowe said that the former Whirlwind building has been purchased by Cooksey Steel, which will be adding 18 to 20 new jobs after the official transfer next week.

Continuing his update to city and county officials, Marlow reported that two national clothing retailers are considering Tifton as a result of the Publix supermarket to be built here. One company is considering the old Winn-Dixie building, while the other is looking at the mall as a possible location.

Marlowe, who is also executive director of the Tift County Development Authority, said Bud Bass has started a three-phase plan for a new 650,000-square-foot industrial park in the county. The first warehouse is already complete.

“He (Bass) did not ask for any tax concessions. He just asked that we help him market the spaces. He’s putting millions of dollars of his own money into our community and is creating a project of the highest quality,” Marlowe said.

“Summers are usually slow, but this summer has been very busy. We have a lot of businesses looking at us. They look and see how strategically we are located and all we have to offer, and they see they need to be here.”

 

(Publisher Frank Sayles Jr. contributed to this story.)