Teijin Limited is to acquire Continental Structural Plastics Holdings Corporation (CSP), a US automotive composite supplier, for US$825 million. CSP will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Teijin.
Teijin says that through this acquisition, it intends to establish an automotive composite products business in North America, and to accelerate its expansion as a tier 1 supplier composites to the global automotive market. CSP's thermoset capabilities, especially its GFRP technology, and Teijin's composites such as carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP), could help reduce weight and component count in finished products. Teijin will also utilize CSP's European Center for Advanced Technology in France and Teijin's composite production facilities to improve its global development capabilities.
CSP is a manufacturer of thermoset composites in the automotive industry and is reportedly the world's largest sheet molding compound (SMC) manufacturer for automakers. It is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA, and holds more than 50 patents covering materials development and manufacturing processes in composite materials formulation and design. The company has 14 facilities in the US, Mexico, France and China and approximately 3,200 employees. It posted consolidated sales of over US$634 million in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015.
‘We are confident that the platform for automotive composite products business we will gain through the acquisition of CSP's complementary technical expertise in thermoset composites and GFRP know-how will trigger further development of our integrated high-performance materials business, one of our key strategic fields,’ said Jun Suzuki, president and CEO of Teijin Limited.
This story uses material from Teijin, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
