Zotefoams, a world leader in supercritical foams, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a joint venture arrangement with Seoheung Co. Ltd. (“Seoheung”), a footwear supply chain specialist manufacturing footwear in Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China, to support the construction and commissioning of its new manufacturing facility in Vietnam.
As an experienced local manufacturer, Seoheung has over 30 years of market-specific expertise and a unique insight into working in Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and China, offering business and cultural insights within this new joint venture.
This partnership supports Zotefoams strategic evolution from supplying traditional foam sheets into new territories of producing 3D preforms for the athletic footwear market, which will leverage both Zotefoams expertise with super critical foams and Seogheung’s manufacturing knowledge.
In order to best support this new partnership, Zotefoams has appointed Brandon Thomas as Managing Director – Asia, a newly created role that reflects the strategic importance of this region to Zotefoams’ growth ambitions.
Most recently, Brandon served as General Manager in Asia at Nike, based in Vietnam, where he set up and led their Air Manufacturing Innovation facility. Brandon is based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and will lead the execution of the Group’s investment and Joint Venture in Asia. He joined the business on 21 July and is a member of the Group Executive Team.
Ronan Cox, Zotefoams plc CEO, said: “The Joint Venture with Seoheung will provide significant benefits to our investment in Asia. Collaborating with an experienced local footwear manufacturing partner significantly de-risks the project from a financial and technical perspective and will enable us to ramp-up more quickly and effectively as well as guarantee excellent quality, service and value to all our Tier 1 factory partners in the region. Furthermore, this underpins our confidence in the substantial growth potential of our footwear business in Southeast and East Asia and our commitment to deliver attractive returns for our shareholders.”
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