American & Efird history

Efird had been founded in 1896 in Albemarle, North Carolina, by brothers Polycarp Efird and John Efird, who grew the business to include five mills.

A second mill was built in Woodlawn in 1905 and began producing spun yarns.

A third operation was acquired in 1910, the Mountain Island Mill, which manufactured a variety of twines, powered by the Catawba River.

In 1916 the first of a pair of manufacturing plants flanking a railroad track in Mt.

In between their construction, Nims acquired the Alsace Manufacturing Company in 1918 and renovated it, and in that same year built another plant in town, the American Processing Company.

The company was successful and in 1920 was consolidated, with other textile mills, into a new corporation known as American Yarn and Processing Company.

Within a few years, thoughts of expansion would be replaced by concerns about mere survival, as the great Depression ushered in by the stock market crash of 1929 led to the closure of many textile mills.

The two plants of the Whitnel Cotton Mill Company were acquired in 1943.

In order to produce outerwear using the yarns its plants produced, American Yarn in 1944 opened the Holly Knit Plant in Mt.

In 1947, the company bought controlling interest in the Efird Manufacturing Company, located in Albemarle, NC, and founded by J.S. Efird.

The Albion Knitting company was acquired in 1950, and shortly after the Efird merger, the five Efird plants were consolidated and upgraded, and at the end of the process three plants remained.

After the completion of the merger between American Yarn Processing and Efird Manufacturing in 1952, the company name changed to American & Efird® Mills, Inc.

In 1968, the diversified interests of R. S. Dickson combined to form the Ruddick Corporation, a holding company, which became A&E’s parent company.

Ruddick soon gained a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, and in addition to A&E it added a second subsidiary in 1969 by purchasing the Harris Teeter supermarket chain.

1978 Grove Thread Company is acquired.

A distribution point established in England to serve Levi resulted in the 1980 acquisition of H. Greenberg, Ltd., a thread dye business located close to Manchester.

A&E also beefed up its capabilities by acquiring the Delta Thread dyeing plant from SCT Yarns, Inc., in 1988.

1991 – Manchester Yarn & Thread (Pvt) Ltd. was established at 66, Messenger Street, Colombo 12.

1992 – New premises were established at Kaduwela (current location) and Yarn dying operations were started with a few dying machines.

In July 1996 it completed the acquisition of Dixie Yarns Inc. and its four manufacturing plants in Gastonia, North Carolina.

Located at Hebei China, Hengmei was established in January 1997.

A&E then expanded its product range, global reach, and client base in 1999 with the acquisition of Hicking Pentecost PLC, a United Kingdom company that produced thread in the United States, China, Northern Ireland, Italy, Hong Kong, and South Africa.

2000 – Manchester Yarn & Thread (Pvt) Ltd. was reincorporated as American Efird Lanka (Pvt) Ltd with its three way Joint Venture agreement between American & Efird Inc.

In order to help our customer to reduce their production lead time and lower their production cost, hence increase their profitability, our entire production line was moved and enlarged the scale to Dongguan China from 2001.

Net sales continued to fall, reaching $294.5 in fiscal 2002 and bottomed out at $293.1 million a year later.

In June 2003, A&E just completed a joint venture program with Ningbo Veken Elite Group Limited headquartered in Ningbo City near Shanghai.

A&E emerged as the “Bronze Award” winners in the ‘Large Scale Category’ at the recently concluded “Community Leader Award 2005” ceremony, conducted by CIMA and sponsored by John Keells Holdings