Coats
Understanding Coats
Coats at a glance
Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread company. Headquartered in the UK, we operate globally and in 2019 generated revenues of $1.4bn.
What we do
We deliver innovative and value add product and service solutions for our c.40,000 global customers to meet the design specifications they require.
Our products are a small but critical component in international global industries such as Apparel and Footwear, Telecoms and Energy, Personal Protection and Automotive industries.
Sustainability is at the heart of our core business values. We look to do business at all times in an ethical manner, respectful of our environment, and delivering peace of mind for our customers.
Each year we aim to produce more from less of the planet’s resources.
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$1.4bn Group revenues |
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$107m Free Cash Flow |
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14.3% Operating margins |
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42% Return on Capital Employed |
Where we operate
Headquartered in the UK and quoted on the London Stock Exchange, we have a global sales presence and digital platforms to enable us to serve customers wherever they are located. Our unrivalled global reach and footprint serve as one of our competitive advantages.
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Sales in around 100 countries |
| c.40,000 Customers globally |
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| 250 Years of textiles experience |
How we operate: Our Sustainability Strategy
Our strategy ‘Pioneering a sustainable future’ focuses on five priority areas:
- Water
- Energy
- Effluent & emissions
- Social
- Living sustainably
We launched our strategy in 2019 with challenging targets for 2022 and 2024. We have made good progress towards the targets, but much remains to be done.
Action plans are in place to deliver across all of them. In 2019 we revisited our materiality assessment, and though there have been changes we can confirm that our strategy continues to align to our key material issues.
Apparel & Footwear
2019 revenue: $1,063m
2019 operating profit: $156m (14.7% margin)
We are the trusted value adding partner, providing critical supply chain components and services to the $1.8tn global Apparel and Footwear industry. Our portfolio of world class products and services exist to serve the needs and requirements of our customers and brand owners.
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Main customer markets |
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| We ultimately supply products and services to premium global brands across many end uses such as active sportswear, denim, sports footwear, and apparel tailoring. | |
| 30,000 | 4,000 |
| Apparel & footwear manufacturers | Retailers & brands |
| Product type | End uses | Key Coats brands |
| Apparel, footwear & accessories threads (c.85% of A&F sales) |
Menswear, ladieswear, activewear, outdoor, denim, workwear, intimates and footwear | Epic, Dual Duty, Seamsoft, Nylbond, Gral, Gramax, Astra, Sylko and CoatsKnit |
| Zips, trims and crafting (c.14% of sales) |
Zips, interlinings, reflective tapes, and Crafting products (Latin America) | Opti, Permess, Signal and Connect |
| Software solutions (c.1-2% of sales) |
Enabling supply chain productivity gains, increasing speed of supply and facilitating compliance | Coats Digital – including Fast React, Vision, GSD, Evolve, ThreadSol, Intellocut and Intellobuy |
Performance Materials
2019 revenue: $326m
2019 operating profit: $42m (12.8% margins)
We are experts in the design and supply of a diverse range of technical products that serve a variety of strategic end use markets.
Derived from our longstanding global market leading Apparel and Footwear thread expertise, which has been built up over 250 years, we are able to provide niche solutions to meet our customers’ needs by incorporating specific design features into various thread and yarn based products.
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Main customer markets |
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| These include hi-tech applications for the Telecoms and Energy sector, Personal Protection clothing and solutions for Transportation sector. | |
| $16m | |
| Incremental new product sales in 2019 from innovation. | |
| End use sector | End uses | Key Coats brands |
| Telecoms and Energy (c.20% of PM sales) |
Protective layers for cables / steel replacement composites | Ultrabloc, Gotex ARG, Gotex FG, Aptan |
| Personal Protection (c.30% of sales) |
Combining comfort, safety and protection – fire retardant and cut resistant threads and yarns | FlamePro, Flame Master, FlamePro Splash Protect, Firefly, Protos |
| Transportation (c.15% of sales) |
High performance threads and yarns for various parts of the automotive industry | Neophil, Aptan XTRU |
| Household and Recreation (c.20% of sales) |
Everyday consumer applications, including bedding / quilting / tea bags | Gral, Opti |
| Other Industrial Applications (c.15% of sales) |
Various other technical applications for light / strong / flexible / innovative threads | Admiral FH, Prolene, Magellan |