“SBA’s core investment principles for new strategic projects are competitiveness in global markets, innovative technologies, environmentally friendly and CO2 emission-reducing solutions, as well as advanced IT solutions. This is exactly what Inno Line will be like, creating jobs and increasing the competitiveness of SBA Group within global markets. We have reached an agreement regarding a long-term contract with our time-tested partner Swedbank, and the project will continue moving forward rapidly,” says SBA Group Head of Treasury Ignas Mačeika.
Other than previous projects, Swedbank, which places emphasis on sustainability, also contributed to the beginnings of the SBA Industrial Innovation Valley – the bank financed the construction of a green-tech-based logistics centre and a robotised furniture component factory.
”We are a long-term financial partner of SBA Group, and we are glad to be able to contribute to innovative, sustainable and advanced projects with them. The importance of the Inno Line project is reflected in the status of the major investment project, with it being the first in Lithuania to receive this from the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, and we hope that the new manufacturing complex will not only help the SBA Group become an even more competitive player on the global market, but also will ensure environmentally friendly manufacturing, which is crucial when looking at the long term,” says Antanas Sagatauskas, the head of Swedbank’s Business Client Service in Lithuania.
The SBA Group’s project Inno Line is the most robotised and automated furniture factory in the region, and it is planned for the company to employ more than 600 staff. The roughly 50-thousand square-metre complex will host automated production lines with more than 30 robots, with some innovative manufacturing solutions being implemented for the first time ever in Europe.
SBA also already secured financing necessary for manufacturing equipment and its installation through an agreement with the Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International AG, which granted a long-term loan for the first time to a project being implemented in Lithuania. The loan is valued at more than 30 million euros.
The factory will comply with the highest energy efficiency standards and will also ensure sustainable manufacturing and a metered and consistently reduced environmental footprint, particularly in terms of CO2 emissions, and the factory will only use energy from renewable sources.
SBA will invest around 92 million euros into Inno Line within several stages, and in recognition of the scale of investment and the planned number of created jobs, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation made this the first project in Lithuania to receive the status of the major investment project.
SBA Group is one of the largest in Lithuania. It operates across the furniture manufacturing, textiles and real estate sectors. The SBA furniture sector includes SBA Home, which manages six manufacturing companies: Klaipėdos Baldai, Šilutės Baldai, Germanika, Visagino Linija, Mebelain, Laminn and the logistics centre Innovo Logistika, which operates out of the SBA Industrial Innovation Valley. The SBA furniture sector also includes the soft furniture manufacturer Kauno Baldai.
SBA also manages the robotics solution company Robotex and SBA Modular, which is due to manufacture modular multi-storey buildings. SBA Group employs around 5,000 staff, and the group exports its products to 50 countries around the world, with its sales for the year 2020 reached 342.5 million euros.
