Teijin to acquire Inapal to expand European automotive business

On the heels of other recent automotive-related acquisitions, Tokyo-based chemical company Teijin Ltd. is purchasing Inapal Plasticos SA, an automotive composite supplier headquartered in Portugal.

The shares of Inapal will be purchased by Teijin Holdings Netherlands B.V., the Teijin Group’s holding company in the Netherlands. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Inapal;s headquarters in Leca do Balio, Porto, Portugal.

Inapal, headquartered in Leca do Balio, Porto, Portugal, is a Tier One supplier of composite components to the automotive and heavy truck industries. The company’s capabilities include Class A body panels, structural and underbody components using a variety of materials and processes, including sheet molding compound (SMC), carbon fiber SMC, pre-preg compression molding (PCM), direct long fiber thermoplastic (D-LFT) and glass mat thermoplastic (GMT). The company has two manufacturing locations in Portugal serving a variety of European OEM customers including Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Bentley.

In addition to its automotive and heavy truck business, Inapal supplies components to the heating and cooling industry, as well as passenger seating components to the bus and rail industries.

“We are leveraging our lightweight, strong, high-performance materials and integrated composite technologies as one of the key focuses of the transformation strategies for our medium-term management plan,” Jun Suzuki, president and CEO of Teijin, said in a statement. “The acquisition of Continental Structural Plastics in Michigan positioned us as a Tier One supplier of high-performance composites to the global automotive market. In July, we announced the acquisition of J.H. Ziegler GmbH, a leading supplier of automotive interior materials in Germany. Now the acquisition of Inapal enables us to deliver on our promise to stakeholders to expand our technologies on a global basis, including in Europe. We will seek synergies by leveraging the business capabilities of CSP, Ziegler and Inapal to continue to grow as a supplier of multi-material components.”

Teijin expects its automotive composite business sales to reach approximately US$2 billion by 2030. “[We] now have the ability to serve customers in most major regions of the world, including North America, Europe and Asia, and have established business with every major global automotive OEM,” the company said in its statement.