South Korea’s Hanon Systems to Put $40M Plant in Bulloch County

Hanon Systems, a South Korea-based provider of automotive thermal management products and HVAC parts like vents, compressors, cooling fans and condensers, is putting a new plant in Georgia, investing $40 million and hiring 160 people.

The factory in Bulloch County, where Statesboro is the seat and largest city, will be located in the county's Gateway Regional Industrial Park, north of Interstate 16. The park is home to a Great Dane trailer factory and a large Walmart Distribution Center.

Hanon already has a plant in Alabama near Hyundai's original factory in the Southeast U.S.; the new one is slated to work closely with the so-called Hyundai Meta Plant in Bryan County, the Korean auto maker's first dedicated facility for the production of electric vehicles in the United States.

The $5.5 billion complex has already attracted more than $1 billion in supplier commitments. Bulloch is one of four counties in the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority that banded together to woo the Hyundai plant. All have now seen substantial new supplier commitments. Bulloch has seen major interest, landing the $205 million Ecoplastics plant set to employ 456 people in injection molding and painting for bumpers, consoles, trims, molds and other parts when it opens in 2024. In November, Ajin became the first Hyundai Meta Plant supplier to announce in Georgia, saying it's planning a $317 million Joon Georgia plant that will hire 630 people in Bulloch County. A release from the governor's office did not set a timeline for the Hanon facility coming online.

Hanon, which has a cluster of plants near Detroit, works with a variety of auto makers beyond its Korean customers. Earlier this year it was named a supplier of the year for General Motors for 2022.

Founded as Halla Climate Control Corp. in the 1980s as a joint venture between Ford and Korea's Mando Corp., the company produced its first HVAC system for the Hyundai Sonata in 1988. The Hanon name was adopted in 2015 when a majority stake was acquired by Hahn & Co. Auto Holdings, a Korean private-equity firm.