OK Stone Engineering Inc.

OK Stone Engineering Inc. is a Texas-based company formed to manufacture engineered quartz slabs to be used as materials for countertops and tile in the building and construction industry. The company’s manufacturing process uses next-generation technologies which reduce costs, improve the quality of the finished product and increase safety of workers in the manufacturing process.

OK Stone is the first high tech source of U.S.-made quartz stone products. The company, with joint venture partner Breton S.p.A., has announced a new factory for engineered stone in Fort Worth, Texas, to fill the massive supply gap in the U.S. market, where the domestic shortage is projected to increase to 140 million square feet annually by 2026. Construction of the facility is scheduled to begin in 2024, with production projected to start in mid to late 2025 and the is facility projected to be scaling to full production in early 2026.

The factory is expected to be the first in the U.S. to employ Breton’s Bioquartz® technology, a transformative state-of-the-art manufacturing process. There are only seven engineered stone slab manufacturers in the U.S., and five of those are based on older Breton technologies. Only OK Stone is investing in this latest technology while other manufacturing facilities risk falling behind.

Products

OK Stone’s licensed Bioquartz® manufacturing technology, which has been under development for a decade, will provide a significant competitive advantage in the market by solving the most frustrating problems faced by customers. Breton, based in Italy, is the definitive international leader in designing and developing engineered stone production plants, with more than 95% of global market share.

This next-gen manufacturing technology will allow OK Stone to source a more reliable and less expensive supply of domestic raw materials, replacing variable supplies from Asia. It is also expected to reduce costs by more than 10% while producing quartz slabs with an unlimited range of aesthetic effects that older manufacturing technologies cannot replicate.

Importantly, the Bioquartz® process eliminates the risk that workers can develop silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling crystalline silica particles. Expected new government regulations to prevent silicosis are likely to impact other U.S. manufacturers. The company’s expected regulatory compliance, as well as its avoidance of international shipping costs for raw materials – which have been unstable since 2021 – are among the factors likely to provide OK Stone with major competitive advantages in the market.

The company will sell its factory output through the existing network of stone distributors that supply the building and construction industry.

Market Opportunity

According to a report by Allied Market Research, a research, consulting and advisory firm, the global engineered stone market was valued at $21.1 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $35.1 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of greater than 5% for the forecast period.

Engineered stone is used in a number of applications in the construction industry, including countertops, flooring and wall tiles, fireplaces and more. The report states that rapid expansion in construction is boosting the global demand for engineered stone.

Management Team

OK Stone’s management team recently designed, built and operated a Breton factory with more than $100 million in annual revenues.

The founder of OK Stone is Oren Klaff. He has led over a billion dollars of corporate financing. He has been developing the company and its technologies for the past three years. He’s well-known in the private capital markets and a leading advisor for growth companies.

The CEO of OK Stone has almost two decades of experience in the engineered stone industry. He began as a production engineer, later hired as a factory manager and eventually in the role of Managing Partner at an Industrial Investment fund, focusing on investments in engineered stone. He holds a Mechanical Engineering degree and an MBA.

The Chief Marketing Officer at OK Stone has more than 15 years of experience as a sales and marketing executive in the industry. He has worked for the top tier of engineered surfaces companies as well as a significant U.S.-based engineered stone company. He has recently been Sales and Marketing Director of a fully scaled Breton equipped factory, and was previously part of the founding team at a separate Breton factory, where he worked extensively in the U.S. market.

Ronald Max is the consulting COO at OK Stone. He has more than 35 years of experience in operations and finance. He has been involved in over $4 billion in real estate transactions and has extensive expertise in complicated ownership structures such as sale-leaseback financing, ground lease bifurcations and real estate securities offerings. In addition, he has experience in creating operating budgets, financial management and industrial real estate development for highly scaled enterprises.