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Albany International, an American company with a revenue of US$ 1.18 billion in 2025, maintains a factory in Indaial on the BR-470 highway, where it produces technical felts that line paper machines for giants like Klabin, Suzano, and Bracell, industrial fabrics invisible to the consumer but essential for manufacturing everything from toilet paper to cardboard.
The most discreet factory on BR-470 in Santa Catarina has no illuminated signs, no queues of trucks, and no promotions to attract customers. The brick building in Indaial, a few kilometers from Blumenau, houses one of the country’s most strategic industrial operations: the Albany International unit that produces high-precision felts and blankets used by paper machines throughout Brazil and South America. The American company, publicly traded and headquartered in New Hampshire, is a global leader in the segment it itself named Machine Clothing, an expression that literally translates to “clothing for machines,” and its annual revenue reached US$ 1.18 billion in 2025, equivalent to approximately R$ 6.7 billion.
What makes the factory in Indaial particularly relevant is what comes out of it. The technical felts and blankets produced in the Santa Catarina unit are components that line the enormous industrial machines used by paper mills to form, press, and dry paper sheets at high speed, a process that simply does not work without these engineered fabrics. Every cardboard box, every notebook, every roll of toilet paper that the Brazilian consumer uses has, at some point in the production chain, passed through a machine that only operates because it is dressed with material like what the Albany factory produces in Santa Catarina.
What the Albany factory produces in Indaial and why no one knows
The Machine Clothing segment is Albany’s most traditional business and accounts for a significant portion of its global revenue. The Santa Catarina factory manufactures technical felts that must withstand extreme temperatures, continuous pressure, and intense friction during hours of continuous operation inside paper machines, a resistance that requires materials engineering comparable to that of aerospace components. Each blanket is meticulously inspected before leaving the unit, because any fabric failure can compromise tons of production at the paper mill that uses it.
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The reason why the average Brazilian has never heard of Albany lies in its business model. The company operates exclusively in the B2B (business to business) format, selling to industries and not to end consumers, which means its product never appears on a supermarket shelf or features in prime-time advertising. The industrial felt is incorporated into the machine, not the shelf product. The consumer sees the cardboard box of the order, the printer’s sulfite sheet, and their child’s school notebook, but has no idea that a felt manufactured in a discreet factory in Indaial participated in the creation of each of these items.
Why Albany chose Santa Catarina for its factory in Brazil
The location on BR-470 was not a random choice. The Indaial factory is approximately 160 kilometers from one of the largest pulp plants in Latin America, and Albany settled in Santa Catarina primarily to serve Klabin, which operates the PM 27 machine in Otacílio Costa, one of the largest and most modern pieces of equipment in the world for producing packaging papers. Being close to the main client reduces logistics costs, accelerates deliveries, and allows for on-site technical support when machines require felt replacement or adjustment.
In addition to Klabin, the Santa Catarina factory supplies other giants in the paper sector in Brazil and on the continent. Suzano and Bracell are among the clients served by the Indaial unit, which functions as a regional distribution center for all of South America. The decision to concentrate operations in Santa Catarina reflects a strategy of proximity to the industrial consumer market, a position that transforms the discreet BR-470 factory into a central piece in the corporate chess game of a company that generates billions operating away from the spotlight.
The other billionaire side of Albany that goes beyond the SC factory
The production of industrial fabrics is only half of Albany’s business. The Albany Engineered Composites (AEC) segment manufactures structural components from advanced composite materials for the aerospace industry, including parts that integrate Boeing and Airbus aircraft engines, an activity that places the company in the same ecosystem of suppliers that serve the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers. It is in this arm that the company’s highest value-added materials and most advanced technological frontier are found.
The combination of fabrics for paper and composites for aircraft may seem unlikely, but it makes industrial sense. Both divisions work with high-performance material engineering that needs to withstand extreme conditions, whether it’s the temperature of an industrial paper dryer or the pressure of a jet engine. Despite robust revenue, Albany reported a net loss of US$ 57 million in 2025, driven by excessive costs and difficulties in aerospace contracts, a problem that the board stated it is controlling for 2026. The Indaial factory, linked to the industrial fabrics segment, operates on more stable ground than the aerospace arm.
What the invisible SC factory reveals about the economy nobody sees
Albany International is the kind of company that sustains entire production chains without anyone noticing. Without the felts that come out of the Indaial factory, paper machines stop, and when paper machines stop, packaging cardboard is not produced, notebooks don’t reach stationery stores, and even Amazon packages stop being dispatched. The invisibility of the product does not diminish its importance; on the contrary, it makes the company even more strategic precisely because its absence would be noticed by everyone.
For those passing by BR-470 and seeing only a brick building with no external sign of grandeur, the Albany factory is a reminder that the economy operates on layers that the eye cannot reach. A R$ 6.7 billion company operating silently in a city in Santa Catarina, producing something nobody sees but everyone uses, is the most precise definition of what it means to be essential without being known.
And you, had you heard of Albany International? Did you know that a factory in SC produces components used by paper mills across the continent? Leave your opinion in the comments.
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