Eventually, the Hildebrand facility will make 16 million pair of socks per year on advanced-manufacturing knitting machines.
- Ken Elkins
- Senior Staff Writer- Charlotte Business Journal
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A 60-employee sock plant in the small town of Hildebrand tomorrow becomes a symbol for returning textile production back to the U.S. and bringing new foreign investment to this country.
A Canadian company, Peds Legwear, will cut the ceremonial ribbon on a small sock-making operation in the Burke County town on Wednesday morning. But to the federal government and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officials planning to attend the event, it’s not about the size of the operation today but the plans for what could happen as America brings manufacturing and production jobs back to this country.
The hopes for the Hildebrand plant are huge.
Peds Legwear, a unit of Richelieu Legwear International Inc. of Sorel, Quebec, plans to spend $16 million on the former International Legwear Group plant. In the process, Michael Penner, CEO of Peds Legwear, wants to bring more than 200 jobs to the facility, he told N.C. officials in June.
“We are reshoring jobs that have gone over to China back to America,” Penner says in a Peds Legwear promotional video. Eventually, the Hildebrand facility will make 16 million pair of socks per year on advanced-manufacturing knitting machines.
If Penner is successful, Peds Legwear could receive $2.9 million in Job Development Investment Grant funds in return for bringing jobs to Burke County. The JDIG incentives come in the form of rebates to the company over a dozen years of employees’ state personal income tax withholdings.
Penner and Peds Legwear have become a prime example of the federal SelectUSA program that encourages direct foreign investment in the U.S. The program has pointed Peds Legwear toward federal grant programs and tax breaks it will receive as a Canadian company investing in this country.
Ken Elkins covers manufacturing, international business and economic development for the Charlotte Business Journal.
Source Article from http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/outside_the_loop/2015/03/federal-wal-mart-officials-descend-on-hickory-area.html
