GERMAN automotive supplier ElringKlinger has acquired metal housings manufacturer Thawa based in Thale, Saxony-Anhalt, for EUR3 million to strengthen its exhaust gas purification technology. Thawa operates as a supplier and production partner to Hug Engineering, a Swiss exhaust treatment specialist acquired by ElringKlinger in May 2011.
Hug is being further developed for exhaust treatment technology and filter substrates within ElringKlinger to serve primarily as a R&D site.
In the case of new incoming orders, the Thawa plant in Thale is to be used primarily for the production of housings as well as for the so-called canning of diesel particulate filters and catalytic converters, alongside other production processes. Services previously outsourced to Swiss suppliers operating within this area are to be performed within the Group at the more cost-efficient site in Thale. Acting as an “extended workbench” for Hug, Thawa is to be expanded in order to accommodate the automated manufacture of larger volumes at serial production level.
As part of the measures implemented for the purpose of integrating the exhaust treatment business of Swiss-based Hug into ElringKlinger, significant cost items will thus be transferred to the euro area. As regards Hug Engineering’s sales revenues, which are generated predominantly within the euro zone, foreign exchange losses arising from the euro/Swiss franc exchange rate will therefore be scaled back. This, in turn, reduces the impact of foreign exchange effects on the company’s operating margin.
Thawa has fifty employees in total. In fiscal 2011, the company generated sales revenue of EUR3.9 million.
Due to increasingly stringent emission standards worldwide, engines are being equipped with more extensive exhaust after-treatment technology. This applies not only to mobile installations in transport vehicles, locomotives and shipping vessels but also to stationary applications.
Operating within ElringKlinger, Hug is currently expanding its business with OEM customers within the commercial vehicle industry, focusing in particular on exhaust gas purification systems for large trucks. Combined with ElringKlinger CleanCoat coating material for soot reduction, Hug diesel particulate filters are being marketed in the commercial vehicle sector as well as the segment for off-road vehicles and stationary systems.(PRA)
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