VBG Group acquires BPW’s drawbar assemblies business
VBG Group’s division VBG Truck Equipment is acquiring BPW’s drawbar assemblies business for commercial vehicles. The acquisition will provide the division with access to products that complement its current product range and thereby strengthen its offering to customers in Europe.
VBG Truck Equipment has signed an agreement with the specialist for agricultural and trailer running gear systems BPW-Hungária Kft. to acquire its drawbar assemblies business for commercial vehicles. The acquisition will provide the division with products that complement its current product offering.
“In 2015, we adjusted our business model for the Central & Western European markets to correspond to the model we were already successfully using in the Nordic region. The business model is based on us offering complete coupling systems rather than individual products, which significantly facilitates for our customers. However, we had a gap in our product range for these types of drawbar assemblies for Central & Western Europe, but we have now secured the final important piece of the puzzle to make our system offering complete,” says Anders Erkén, Division Manager of VBG Truck Equipment.
The purchase agreement has been signed today, March 15, 2019. The acquisition concerns BPW’s drawbar business as a going concern and includes product rights and both tangible and intangible assets used in the business, such as patents and ECE approvals for variants of drawbars and rigid drawbars for center-axle trailers and trailers as well as folding underrun protections and hitch blocks. The acquisition will be finalized in approximately nine months, on December 31, 2019. The purchase price amounts to EUR 2.4 million.
“The BPW Group is already our distributor of drawbar couplings in a number of countries and we have a long and good business relationship that we will continue in the future. We have therefore been in discussions for some time and arrived at a solution that favors both parties,” says Anders Erkén.
Michael Pfeiffer, personally liable managing partner of BPW adds: “The BPW Group researches, develops and manufactures everything needed to ensure that a trailer keeps moving and is safe, illuminated, intelligent and digitally connected. In order to streamline our product portfolio in this sense, we have decided to carve out the product division of drawbar assemblies.”
VBG Truck Equipment is VBG Group’s second largest division in terms of sales and a world-leading supplier of coupling equipment for trucks. The division’s Western European market represents about 40 percent of the division’s total sales.
“It is a minor acquisition financially for us, but from a strategic perspective the acquisition is very important, since it is entirely in line with our ambition to create high customer value in the products,” says Anders Birgersson, President and CEO of VBG Group AB.
Contact
Anders Birgersson, President & CEO
Telephone: +46 521-27 77 67, +46 702-27 77 78
E-mail: anders.birgersson@vbggroup.com
Anders Erkén, Division Manager, VBG Truck Equipment
Telephone: +46 521-27 77 88, +46 768-24 75 00
E-mail: anders.erken@vbggroup.com
VBG Group AB (publ), domiciled in Vänersborg, is the Parent company of an international engineering Group with wholly owned companies in Europe, North America, Brazil, South Africa Australia, India and China. The Group’s operations are divided into four divisions – VBG Truck Equipment, Edscha Trailer Systems, Mobile Climate Control and Ringfeder Power Transmission – with products that are marketed under strong, well-known brands. VBG Group AB’s Series B share was introduced on the stock exchange in 1987 and is listed today on the Nasdaq Stockholm Mid Cap list.
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