Schweitzer-Mauduit International Profile
Mativ Holdings, Inc. (Mativ) operates as a global leader in manufacturing specialty materials.
The company offers a wide range of critical components and engineered solutions that solve the company’s customers’ most complex challenges. Mativ manufactures globally through the company’s family of business-to-business and consumer product brands. Mativ targets premium applications across diversified and growing end-markets, from filtration to healthcare to sustainable packaging and more. The company’s broad portfolio of technologies combines polymers, fibers, and resins to optimize the performance of the company’s customers’ products across multiple stages of the value chain.
On November 30, 2023, the company completed the sale of its EP business (Engineered Papers business). With the sale of the EP business, Mativ ceased participating in tobacco-based products markets.
Mativ and its subsidiaries manufacture on three continents, conduct business in over 100 countries, and operate 40 production locations worldwide, with offices and facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, India, Canada, Spain, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Luxembourg.
Strategy
Mativ is focused on becoming the global leader in specialty materials, driving growth by engineering unique, innovative solutions to solve complex customer challenges. The company participates in a number of growing end-markets and has a strong reputation in the categories and geographies in which it competes, often occupying a leading position in those spaces.
Mativ participates in a number of key growing product categories, such as filtration, specialty tapes, release liners, specialty films, and premium packaging, with strong trends supporting the positive outlook of the company’s business, such as the need for clean air and water, personal health and wellness, performance coating solutions, and sustainable alternatives. The company focuses its resources and deploys its capital in a disciplined manner to enhance the company’s competitive position, adding key technologies, broadening capabilities, and creating innovative products that help support the company’s ability to win in the marketplace.
Segments
The company operates through two segments: Advanced Technical Materials (ATM) and Fiber-Based Solutions (FBS).
Starting with the first fiscal quarter of 2024, the company will reorganize into two new segments: Filtration and Advanced Materials focused primarily on filtration and protective solutions end markets; and Sustainable & Adhesive Solutions, focused primarily on release liner, industrials, healthcare, and packaging and specialty papers end markets.
Advanced Technical Materials segment
Products
The company manufactures and sells a variety of highly engineered polymer, resin and fiber-based substrates, nets, films, adhesive tapes, and other nonwovens. These performance materials are often used in growing applications serving the filtration, protective solutions, release liners, and healthcare end-markets. The company’s manufacturing process consists of taking basic inputs, such as fibers and chemicals, to create highly engineered media, such as nonwovens, films, specialty paper, and advanced netting. The company then further processes its media through coating, saturating, adhesive application, and advanced converting manufacturing processes to impart specific product attributes that are valued by the company’s customers, enhancing Mativ’s value proposition as a solutions provider. With the growth of the company’s ATM segment, the company’s technical expertise around the production, coating, and converting of polymer and resin-based materials is increasing. The company has industry-leading innovation capabilities and an expanding product portfolio, which the company expects to support growth through collaborative product development opportunities with the company’s customers.
Applications and Categories
The following are more detailed descriptions of the company’s key products and applications:
Filtration: The company produces highly engineered media and components aiding in the separation and purification of air and liquids for a variety of applications. The company’s primary products include fiber and polymer based nonwoven media and extruded filter elements that are sold to filter manufacturers who, in turn, incorporate the company’s media in the final filter assembly. Primary filtration applications for the company’s media include: water – reverse osmosis and waste water treatment; transportation – air intake, oil, fuel, and cabin air; process – fluid purification for industrial manufacturing; and air – HVAC, air purification, and vapor permeation.
Protective Solutions: The company manufactures its thermoplastic polyurethane films to have combinations of the following attributes: UV and scratch resistance, durability, and ultra-clarity. The ability to demonstrate these rare combinations make them ideally suited for demanding protective solutions, such as automotive paint protection films, which are typically installed in the after-market. Other key applications include ballistic-resistant and security reinforced glass used in various transportation modes (e.g., auto, aero, and train), electronics and specialty cameras (e.g., back-up cameras in vehicles), and other applications in the industrial (e.g., emerging ‘smartglass’ products) and healthcare (e.g., diagnostic testing strips) end-markets.
Release liners: The company manufactures protective substrates that aid in the separation of a product from an adhesive for a diverse set of end-use applications. Leveraging the company’s advanced coating capabilities, these protective substrates are typically produced by applying a specialty silicone coating to various base medias (primarily paper), then sold to customers who integrate them into a final end-product solution. The key to these products is the ability to develop release characteristics that interface with a variety of adhesives, enabling separation (‘peeling away’) without damage to the main product. Primary categories include personal care and hygiene, labels, specialty tapes, graphic arts, industrial specialties, composites, and other uses.
Healthcare: The company is a turn-key provider with a broad portfolio of capabilities to support medical device manufacturing and support for a variety of health and wellness solutions. Using the company’s advanced films, adhesive coating, and converting operations, the company’s products are used in such demanding applications as wound care (both advanced technologies used in hospital settings and consumer products found in retail), medical device fixation, and consumer wellness (e.g., topical skin care and health & beauty applications).
Industrials: The company leverages a diverse array of production techniques (e.g., resin extrusion, precision coating, and saturation) to manufacture specialty products, such as extruded nets, apertured films, specialty papers, and adhesive media/tapes, which serve specialty segments of large, global categories. A majority of these products are highly customized for specific, demanding applications in areas such as construction, automotive, home improvement, sporting goods, and agriculture. Some examples of the company’s diverse product catalog include consumer-oriented specialty tapes, tape and abrasive backings, performance labels, cable wraps, support structures, and netting products for construction and packaging.
Markets and Customers
The ATM segment supplies customers serving the filtration, protective solutions, release liners, healthcare, and industrials end-markets.
Sales and Distribution
ATM products are primarily sold by the marketing, sales and customer service organizations of the company’s ATM operations as a component part directly to system integrators and downstream manufacturers, given the customized nature of many of the company’s products. However, in some geographic regions, the company uses sales agents and distributors to assist the company in the sales process. The company typically delivers its products to customers by truck, rail and ocean-going vessels.
Competition
The company’s ATM products are typically leaders in their respective categories and compete against specialty products made by competitors, such as Shaoxing Naite Plastics Co. Ltd., 3M Company, Covestro AG, ORAFOL Europe GmbH, Hollingsworth and Vose Company, Advanced Medical Solutions Group plc, Avery Dennison, Ahlstrom Holding 3 Oy, Mondi plc, Loparex LLC, Monadnock Paper Mills, Inc., and Potsdam Specialty Paper, Inc.
Fiber-Based Solutions segment
The company’s FBS segment primarily produces packaging and specialty paper products, using mainly natural and sustainable fibers. The company produces a wide range of substrates at various thicknesses and with various attributes to meet the needs of the company’s customers. Some examples of these value-added attributes include printability, color, texture, specialty finish, and recycled content. While certain categories within this segment are mature, the company’s products are aligned with trends towards sustainable alternatives, and the company continues to evolve the company’s business through innovation to diversify end-markets and enhance growth. The company’s manufacturing capabilities are flexible and nimble to service very specialized products at various order quantities efficiently, and the company’s products are sold globally, though most prevalent in North America.
Applications
The company is a leading supplier of premium packaging, printing, and other high-end specialty papers, predominantly in North America. The company participates in premium pockets of its categories with a wide portfolio of products and specialty manufacturing that is not easily replicated by commodity paper producers. The company’s premium packaging products are used for wine, spirits and beer labels, folding cartons, box wrap, bags, hang tags, and stored value cards servicing high-end retail, cosmetics, spirits, and electronics end-use markets. These papers are characterized by finishing, colors, textures and distinctive coating, which are valued by customers and incorporated into their branding and image. The company’s premium papers are primarily used in high-end commercial printing services, advertising collateral, stationery, corporate identity packages and brochures, direct mail, business cards, and a variety of other uses where colors, texture, coating, unique finishes, or heavier weight papers are desired. The company also produces a variety of branded paper-based products for the consumer channel, such as bright papers, cardstock, stationery paper, envelopes, journals, and planners.
Markets and Customers
The company’s FBS segment is generally more mature given its exposures to commercial print which has historically demonstrated secular volume declines. FBS continues to reposition itself by leveraging its unique manufacturing capabilities and product innovation to diversify its end-markets and enhance growth, particularly by expanding in sustainable alternatives and premium packaging. The company’s packaging and specialty papers business serves a variety of end-use customers, primarily by selling to converters and printers who are producing products to meet the needs of designers, brand owners, and other end-users. The company also sells direct to consumers through major retail channels.
Sales and Distribution
In packaging and specialty papers, the company primarily uses its internal sales, marketing, and customer service organization to sell the company’s products in a variety of channels, including authorized paper distributors, converters, major national retailers, specialty business converters, and direct to end-users. The company typically delivers its products to customers by truck, rail and ocean-going vessels.
Competition
The company’s packaging and specialty papers is a leading supplier of premium printing and other high-end specialty papers and packaging applications in North America, competing primarily in North America with Mohawk Fine Papers, Inc. and Monadnock Paper Mills, Inc. in specialty papers and with a highly fragmented competitor group in packaging.
Seasonality
Sales of the company’s products are subject to seasonal fluctuations due to periodic machine downtime and typically lower order volumes in the fourth quarter (year ended December 2023).
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2023, Mativ owned about 755 patents and patent applications globally.
Government Regulation
The company is subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.S. export control and trade sanction laws, and similar anti-corruption and international trade laws in certain foreign countries, such as the U.K. Bribery Act.
History
The company was founded in 1995. It was incorporated in Delaware in 1995. It was formerly known as Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. and changed its name to Mativ Holdings, Inc. in 2022.
