Interface Stock

Interface, Inc. (Interface) is a global flooring company specializing in carbon neutral carpet tile and resilient flooring, including luxury vinyl tile (‘LVT’), and nora rubber flooring.

The company helps its customers create high-performance interior spaces that support well-being, productivity, and creativity, as well as sustainability of the planet.

The company markets modular carpet under the established brand names Interface and FLOR. The company markets LVT under the brand Interface. In 2018, the company acquired nora Holding GmbH (‘nora’), a worldwide leader in the rubber flooring category under the established nora brands noraplan and norament.

Reportable Segments

The company has two operating and reportable segments – namely Americas (‘AMS’) and Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia (collectively ‘EAAA’). The AMS operating segment includes the United States, Canada and Latin America geographic areas.

Products and Services

Modular Carpet

The company’s AMS and EAAA reportable segments sell the same products within their respective geographical regions. The company produces carpet tiles in a wide variety of colors, patterns, textures, pile heights and densities. These varieties are designed to meet both the practical and aesthetic needs of a broad spectrum of commercial interiors — particularly offices, healthcare facilities, airports, educational and other institutions, hospitality spaces, retail facilities — and residential interiors. The company’s carpet tile systems permit distinctive styling and patterning that can be used to complement interior designs, to set off areas for particular purposes and create visual cues. While the company continues to manufacture and sell a substantial portion of the company’s carpet tile in standard styles, most of the company’s modular carpet sales in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific regions are made-to-order products designed to meet customer specifications.

The company’s modular carpet systems are marketed under the established brands Interface and FLOR. The company manufactures carpet tiles cut in precise, dimensionally stable squares (usually 50 cm x 50 cm) or rectangles (such as planks and Skinny Planks). The company’s GlasBac technology employs a fiberglass-reinforced polymeric composite backing that provides dimensional stability and reduces the need for adhesives or fasteners. The company also makes carpet tiles with a backing containing post-industrial and/or post-consumer recycled materials, which the company markets under the CQuestGB name (formerly known as GlasBacRE). In addition, the company makes carpet tile with yarn containing varying degrees of recycled post-consumer nylon, depending on the style and color.

In 2021, the company introduced its Open Air collection of more affordable carpet tiles — a platform of hard-working carpet tile styles designed with open spaces in mind. Innovations in both design and manufacturing allow the company to create these high-quality, high-performance carpet products at a lower price point.

Launched in 2020, the company’s next generation of carpet tile backings are called CQuest backings. Guided by materials science and inspired by nature’s carbon-storing abilities, the company added new bio-based materials and more recycled content to the company’s backings. The materials in the CQuest backings, when measured on a stand-alone basis, are net carbon negative — meaning that their global warming potential emissions are net negative. The CQuest backings are:

CQuestGB – The next evolution of the company’s GlasBacRE backing. It features the same superior performance with a construction of post-consumer recycled content from carpet tiles, bio-based additives, and pre-consumer recycled materials.

CQuestBio – A non-vinyl bio-composite backing made with bio-based and recycled fillers.

CQuestBioX – The same material make-up as CQuestBio with a higher concentration of carbon negative materials.

The company’s i2 modular product line, which includes its popular Entropy product, features mergeable dye lots, and includes a number of carpet tile products that are designed to be installed randomly without reference to the orientation of neighboring tiles. The i2 line offers installation and maintenance, interactive flexibility, and recycled and recyclable materials. The company’s TacTiles carpet tile installation system uses small squares of adhesive plastic film to connect intersecting carpet tiles, thus eliminating the need for traditional carpet adhesive and resulting in a reduction in installation time and material waste.

The company also produces and sells a specially adapted version of its carpet tile for the healthcare facilities market. The company’s carpet tile possesses characteristics — such as the use of the Intersept antimicrobial, static-controlling nylon yarns, and thermally pigmented, colorfast yarns — which make it suitable for use in these facilities in place of hard surface flooring. Moreover, the company sells its FLOR line of products to specifically target modular carpet sales to the residential market segment, and in recent years FLOR products have had crossover success in commercial markets. In addition, the company has created modular carpet products specifically designed for each of the education, hospitality and retail market segments.

The design firm David Oakey Designs has had a pivotal role in developing many of the company’s innovative product designs. David Oakey Designs has developed products that are manufactured using tufting technology, which allows the company to pinpoint tufts of different colored yarns in virtually any arrangement within a carpet tile. These unique designs are best exemplified by the company’s Urban Retreat, Net Effect, Human Nature and World Woven collections, which are sold throughout the company’s international operations.

With the launch of the company’s new CQuest backings, the company introduced in the Americas and subsequently in the company’s EAAA geographical regions, the company’s first ever ‘cradle-to-gate’ carbon negative carpet tile products in three unique styles: Shishu Stitch, Tokyo Texture, and Zen Stitch. These pioneering products, which are part of the company’s Embodied Beauty collection, are created with a combination of the company’s new CQuestBioX carpet backing (featuring new bio-based materials and more recycled content), specialty yarns and tufting processes that create a carpet tile with a net negative value of ‘embodied carbon’. Embodied carbon is the carbon footprint (meaning the global warming potential of emissions of greenhouse gases measured in carbon dioxide equivalents) of a product from raw material creation, growth and extraction (the ‘cradle’) through processing until it is packaged and ready to be shipped from the company’s factory (the ‘gate’), thus referred to as ‘cradle-to-gate’ in the life cycle assessment of a product. Embodied carbon is distinct from operational carbon, which refers to the carbon footprint of everything that happens after the product leaves the company’s factory, such as shipment, customer use, and end of life.

Modular Resilient Flooring

In 2016, the company began offering a category of products the company calls modular resilient flooring, and the company’s first product introductions into this category were LVT products in the United States. In 2017, the company launched its LVT products globally, beginning with the Level Set collection which is available in styles with printed top layers in a variety of aesthetic looks, including natural woodgrains and stones, textured woodgrains, and patterns. The company’s LVT products are modular and come in sizes that match certain of the company’s modular carpet tile squares and planks. Some of the company’s LVT products are engineered to the same or similar height as the company’s modular carpet, which means the company’s customers have the ability to install the company’s LVT and modular carpet products side by side without transition strips or layering. In addition, some of the company’s LVT products include a backing system that provides acoustic insulation without the need for additional underlayment, which can reduce the impact of sound in the space where the flooring is used.

Rubber Flooring

With the acquisition of nora in 2018, the company began offering rubber flooring products under the established noraplan and norament brands, which enhances the company’s resilient flooring portfolio. Rubber flooring is ideal for applications that require hygienic, safe flooring with strong chemical resistance. Rubber flooring is extremely durable compared to other flooring alternatives.

Other Products and Services

The company sells a proprietary antimicrobial chemical compound under the registered trademark Intersept that the company incorporates in some of its modular carpet products. The company also sells its TacTiles carpet tile installation system, along with a variety of traditional adhesives and products for carpet installation and maintenance that are manufactured by a third party. The company also continues to provide ‘turnkey’ project management services for a number of global accounts and other large customers through the company’s InterfaceSERVICES business.

Sales and Marketing

The company distributes its products through two primary channels: (1) direct sales to end users; and (2) indirect sales through independent contractors, installers and distributors. The company uses an exclusive third-party distributor to sell the company’s products in the Latin American region. The company has traditionally focused its carpet marketing strategy on major accounts, seeking to build lasting relationships with national and multinational end-users, and on architects, interior designers, engineers, contracting firms, and other specifiers who often make or significantly influence purchasing decisions. While the corporate office market segment, including new construction and renovation, is the company’s largest, the company also emphasizes sales in other market segments, including schools and educational facilities, government institutions, retail space, healthcare facilities, tenant improvement space, hospitality centers, residences and home office space. The company’s marketing efforts are enhanced by the established and well-known brand names of the company’s carpet products, including Interface and FLOR, as well as the strength of the nora rubber flooring brands of noraplan and norament.

An important part of the company’s marketing and sales efforts involves the preparation of custom-made samples of requested carpet designs, in conjunction with the development of innovative product designs and styles to meet the customer’s particular needs. In most cases, the company can produce samples to customer specifications in less than five days, which significantly enhances the company’s marketing and sales efforts. In addition, through its websites, the company has made it easy to view and request samples of the company’s products. The company also uses technology, which allows the company to provide digital, simulated samples of its products, which helps reduce raw material and energy consumption associated with the company’s samples.

The company primarily uses its internal marketing and sales force teams to market the company’s flooring products. In order to implement the company’s global marketing efforts, the company has product showrooms or design studios in the United States, England, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, India, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and elsewhere. The company may open offices in other locations around the world as necessary to capitalize on emerging marketing opportunities.

Business Strategy

The company’s business strategy is to continue to use its leading position in modular carpet, product design and global made-to-order capabilities as a platform from which to position the company’s modular carpet, LVT products, rubber flooring, and other resilient products across several industry segments.

The company’s strategies are to continue to penetrate non-corporate office market segments; develop a substantial resilient flooring business; and sustain leadership in product design and development.

Seasonality

As the company executes on its strategy to penetrate non-corporate office market segments, sales in the education market segment have increased, in recent years, particularly in the second and third quarters (year ended December 2023) as schools undertake renovation projects during the summer months when schools are typically closed.

Patents and Trademarks

The company owns many trademarks in the United States and abroad. In addition to the United States, the primary jurisdictions in which the company has registered its trademarks are the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and various countries in Central America, South America and Asia. Some of the company’s more prominent registered trademarks include Interface, FLOR, GlasBac, CQuest, Climate Take Back, nora, norament, noraplan, nTX solution, noraplan unita, noraplan valua, and TacTiles. Trademark registrations in the United States are valid for a period of 10 years and are renewable for additional 10-year periods as long as the mark remains in actual use. The duration of trademarks registered in other jurisdictions varies.

Research and Development

The company’s research and development expenses were $17.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2023.

History

Interface, Inc. was founded in 1973. The company was incorporated in 1973 as a Georgia corporation.