A worker moves a roll of carpet at the Dixie Group in North Georgia. Dixie Group has purchased textile manufacturer Burtco Enterprises Inc. for $2.3 million.Chattanooga carpet maker Dixie Group on Wednesday made another acquisition with the purchase of a Dalton, Ga.-based manufacturer designed to fill a niche between woven and tufted products.
Dixie paid $2.3 million for Burtco Enterprises Inc., which is a provider of Tapistron computerized yarn placement soft floorcovering and other related products serving the hospitality market.
Jon Faulkner, Dixie's chief financial officer, said Dixie is hiring nearly all of the 50 employees of Burtco, including its operations, sales and marketing staff. Dixie will continue to operate Burtco's tufting plant in Chickamauga, Ga. The operations will be run by Elizabeth Moore, who was Burtco's chief executive. Burtco has administrative offices in Dalton, Ga.
"We think it will be a fruitful and profitable acquisition," Faulkner said.
Burtco was co-founded in 1979 by Burton Brown.
Shares of Dixie stock traded on the Nasdaq exchange rose 3.1 percent Wednesday, closing at $8.31, or 25 cents per share higher.
Kemp Harr, publisher of Floor Focus magazine, said Burtco sales were $10 million in 2012.
He said the company has had a niche in the hospitality business, including upper-end restaurants and country clubs as well as hotels.
One of Burtco's most recent large projects was at Alexian Village on Signal Mountain, Harr said.
He said the Tapistron CYP technology is "real specialized."
"It gives Dixie some capabilities there," Harr said.
Dixie, in its biggest carpet acquisition in more than a decade, earlier this year acquired Atlas Carpet Mills of Los Angeles for $17.4 million.
Atlas, a high-end manufacturer and marketer of commercial floorcovering products, had generated sales of $53 million last year and was profitable in every year of its 44-year history.
That deal added more luxury lines in both broadloom and modular carpet tile. In May, Dixie said it was continuing to consolidate the companies' operations, which should be complete by 2015.
Dixie is a manufacturer of carpet and rugs to higher-end residential and commercial customers through the Fabrica International, Masland Carpets, Dixie Home, Masland Contract and Avant brands.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.