Toray plans to take over the assets of Saati’s plant in January 2015 and start operation as Composite Materials Italy Srl (CTI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toray. Saati's American composite business will still belong to the Saati Group.
Saati's carbon fiber fabric and prepreg business has been expanding rapidly in recent years as a customer of Toray Group's carbon fiber-related companies, while Toray is already engaged in carbon fiber polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor at its French subsidiary, Toray Carbon Fibers Europe SA (CFE). It also runs a CFRP parts business that uses carbon fiber fabric at its German subsidiaries of Euro Advanced Carbon Fiber Composites GmbH (EACC) and ACE Advanced Composite Engineering GmbH (ACE).
Global focus
The company says that this acquisition strengthens its carbon fiber composite materials business in Europe. Going forward, Toray Group will transfer its technology to CIT while aiming to expand the business beyond Europe to a more global focus.
