The Bosch Group and the MAHLE Group have decided to seek a buyer for their joint venture, Bosch Mahle Turbo Systems (BMTS). The joint subsidiary was founded in 2008. With approximately 1,400 employees, BMTS develops and produces turbochargers for manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Production is largely based in St. Michael, Austria, and in Shanghai. In Germany, BMTS also has a presence at two other locations in Stuttgart and Blaichach.
According to Bosch and MAHLE, thanks to the high quality products the business produces, BMTS has developed an excellent reputation in the automotive industry and has received numerous industry awards.
Further investment is required
The international market for turbochargers is expected to continue to grow in the years ahead as the trend toward smaller engines fitted with turbochargers, especially for hybrid drives, remains strong. BMTS has already benefited from this market trend. However, the company is not yet large enough to achieve sustainable success in this market environment.
“Large production quantities and the associated economies of scale represent a critical competitive advantage,” said Dr. Rolf Bulander, chairman of the Business Sector Mobility Solutions at Bosch. “Despite bulk orders received from renowned customers, the associated high-capacity utilization at our plants, and above-average growth rates, present sales volumes at BMTS are still too low in comparison with our larger competitors and must be further expanded.”
For this reason, further investments are needed to achieve the company size required in the market. Bosch and MAHLE said they do not intend to drive forward the further expansion of BMTS themselves, because both parent companies need to focus their investments chiefly on new areas of development.
“Thanks to our state-of-the-art locations and BMTS’s good products, we are currently confident of finding a prospective buyer who will successfully expand the business,” said Wolf-Henning Scheider, chairman of the MAHLE management board and CEO of the MAHLE Group.
Employee representatives and employees have been informed about the intention to sell the joint venture. Discussions are taking place with the relevant employee representatives to prepare the next steps in the sale process.
Engineering and products
Exhaust gas turbochargers are a key component of modern, energy-saving and low-emission combustion engines in passenger cars and commercial vehicles. BMTS develops highly efficient solutions for gasoline and diesel engines, which are characterized by excellent responsiveness, ultra-high levels of efficiency and optimal acoustics. The company’s most recent achievement is the development of a variable turbine geometry for exhaust gas turbochargers in gasoline engines in large-scale production.
In recent years, alongside product development, the company has made considerable investments in production processes, including end-of-line testing. BMTS is one of the first companies in the world to test the perfect functionality of each individual exhaust gas turbocharger in a fully automated process at the end of the production line.
