GERMANY – Nobilia, the largest kitchen cabinet manufacturer in Europe, has purchased a 30-hectare area in Saarlouis and will begin building a new manufacturing plant there.
“The French market is the second most important market for us after Germany,” said Nobilia CEO Lars M. Bopf after the certification of the purchase documents. “In this respect, we are able to meet our customers in France and in other southern European countries geographically well. This saves transport routes and delivery times and thus leads to optimized logistics”, Bopf summarized the main reasons for the decision.
The construction of a third plant in addition to the two domestic production sites in Verl-Sürenheide and Verl-Kaunitz will be done gradually in different stages of construction. “In the final phase of expansion, more than 1,000 jobs can be created on this area on up to 120,000 square meters of production space,” Bopf continued.
“Saarland also offers a well-structured range of skilled workers. The proximity to the French border also provides a good starting point against this backdrop, because Nobilia needs staff with French language skills,” reported Bopf. For this reason, at the turn of the year, an independent sales office in Saarbrücken had already been set up to provide support to French customers. The French market accounts for 42% of its foreign sales. The next step is about building permission and further detailed planning. In addition, necessary machines would have to be ordered. The first cabinet in Saarlouis probably will not be ready before 2020.
Nobilia sales in 2017 reached EUR 1.126 billion euros with 3,315 employees. Export business represented 46.5% of revenue. With a share of 42 percent of exports, France dominates, followed by Belgium with 13 percent.
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