Teijin Limited has agreed to wholly acquire Benet Automotive s.r.o. (Benet), a leading automotive composite and component supplier in the Czech Republic, from Jet Investment. Terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.
Benet, headquartered in Mlada Boleslav, Czech Republic, is a Tier 1 supplier of composite components to the automotive industry, offering advanced technologies for carbon-fiber-reinforced and glass-fiber-reinforced plastic molding, as well as the painting and assembly of vehicles. The company specializes in reinforced reaction injection molding (RRIM), a low-pressure process using polyurethane; and both conventional autoclave and resin transfer molding (RTM). Benet has three facilities in Czechia and one in Germany to serve European automotive OEMs, including Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Skoda. The company has 720 employees and recorded sales of EUR 35.2 million (about $40 million U.S.) in fiscal 2018.
Teijin says it is growing its automotive composites business with proprietary lightweight, high-performance materials, and superior design capabilities. It aims to become a multi-material component supply partner of automotive OEM customers served by Teijin hubs in Europe, North America and Asia. In Europe, Teijin acquired Inapal Plásticos SA, a leading automotive-composite supplier in Portugal, in August 2018; and is installing a glass- and carbon-fiber sheet-molding-compound (GF-SMC and CF-SMC) line in the French facility of Continental Structural Plastics, a world leader in automotive composites based in North America, which Teijin acquired in January 2017.
Benet has strategic proximity to the central and eastern regions of the European market where key German and other European OEMs operate production facilities. Teijin says the company’s proven supply record will provide a solid foundation for it to further strengthen its solution development capabilities and sales channels in Europe.
As part of its multi-material strategy, Teijin will leverage Benet’s capabilities in existing development projects and will evolve chemistry innovations with Teijin and CSP’s outstanding material and molding technologies and technical team members to offer innovative automotive composite solutions. The company wants to create new solutions that will meet customers’ future needs for lightness, toughness, design flexibility, productivity and cost-effeteness. Teijin is targeting automotive composite business sales of approximately EUR 1.7 billion (about $2 billion U.S.) by 2030.
