On July 3rd local time, Teijin Limited announced that it has agreed to acquire Benet Automotive sro (Benet), a Czech automotive composites and components supplier, from Jet Investment. Not yet disclosed.
Benet, headquartered in Mlada Boleslav, Czech Republic, is a tier one supplier of composite parts for the automotive industry, providing advanced carbon fiber reinforced and glass fiber reinforced plastic molding technologies, as well as automotive coating and assembly products. The company specializes in the development of enhanced reaction injection molding processes (RRIM, low pressure processes using polyurethane), traditional autoclaves and resin transfer molding processes (RTM). Benet has three plants in the Czech Republic and one in Germany, supplying products to European automotive OEMs such as Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Skoda. The company has a total of 720 employees and had sales of 35.2 million euros (approximately $ 40 million) in fiscal 2018.
With its proprietary lightweight, high-performance materials and superior design capabilities, Teijin is continuously developing its automotive composites business and has established Teijin hubs in Europe, North America, and Asia to become automotive OEMs in these regions Customer's composite parts supplier. In Europe, Teijin acquired Inapal Plásticos SA, Portugal's leading automotive component supplier, in August 2018.In addition, Teijin acquired North American automotive composites world leader Continental Structural Plastics in January 2017, and in the latter's France Factory installed glass and carbon fiber sheet film composite materials (GF-SMC and CF-SMC) production lines.
Strategically, Benet is close to the Middle East of the European market, and key German and other European OEMs have set up factories in the Middle East. The company has a good track record of supply, which can further strengthen Teijin's solution research and development capabilities in Europe and expand sales channels.
As part of its multi-materials strategy, Teijin will use Benet's capabilities in existing R & D projects to develop innovative chemistry with Teijin, Continental Structural Plastics' outstanding materials and molding technology and technical team to provide innovative automotive composite solutions Meet customers' future needs for light weight, robustness, design flexibility, high productivity and cost-effectiveness. Currently, Teijin plans to increase its automotive composites sales to approximately 1.7 billion euros by 2030