Prime Tanning and Shanghai Richina merger
5 June 2008Prime Tanning in Maine, USA, and Shanghai Richina Leather in China, are to merge their two organisations to form Prime Leather International. Prime Tanning currently operate the largest vertically integrated wet-blue and side-leather finishing tanneries in North America and sell finished leather to footwear, handbag, upholstery, and speciality markets worldwide and to the US military.
Shanghai Richina Leather Co Ltd finish leather at their large facility in Shanghai and sell to the shoe, garment, and automotive leather markets. Both companies supply the world’s best brands. The combined company will have the capacity to finish more than 150 million feet of leather annually.
Robert Moore, current CEO of Prime, will become CEO of the new company and the board of directors will be comprised of representatives from both of the companies. The combination will be structured as a three-step process.
First, on May 1, 2008, the two companies will execute a management agreement that will combine their global management, marketing, sales, and customer service teams into one entity so they can deliver significant synergies to their global customer base immediately.
Secondly, Prime and SRL will legally combine the balance of their operations through a merger or contribution agreement as soon as possible. Thirdly, the combined entity will seek a listing on an Asian stock exchange at the earliest possible time according to market conditions.
Moore commented: ‘The merger of Prime and SRL will be a landmark transaction combining the enormous production and technological synergies of the two companies for the benefit of our global customer base. This transaction will enable us to serve the global needs of customers by integrating our R&D and manufacturing platforms on a worldwide basis. We will maintain Prime’s unsurpassed standards for product innovation, quality and environmental stewardship.’
SRL’s CEO Roger Wang stated: ‘SRL has been working closely with Prime since Prime became our principal wet-blue supplier in early 2006. We have gotten to know the Prime team and value the strong synergies between us. This merger will create the undisputed global leader in premium bovine fashion leathers for the footwear and speciality markets, while significantly strengthening our capabilities in our lambskin garment and automotive leather divisions. We look forward to integrating our global sales and marketing, technical, and production teams for the benefit of our customers worldwide.’
