Nidec to acquire 70 percent stake in Desch Group
Nidec Corporation has agreed to acquire a 70 percent ownership of a privately owned German company, Desch Antriebstechnik and its group companies in Germany and China, from its owners.
The transaction will be made through Nidec-Shimpo, a Germany-based affiliate of Nidec’s subsidiary, Nidec-Shimpo Corporation.
Desch was founded in 1906 and manufactures and sells large precision gearboxes. It has approximately 400 employees and last year had revenues of around $100 million.
Nidec is headquartered in Japan and has annual revenues in excess of $11 billion.
Nidec’s business is in the manufacture, sales and services associated with reduction gearboxes and pressing machinery business through its subsidiary, Nidec-Shimpo Corporation. It has around 2,300 employees.
Nidec-Shimpo has a consolidated strong presence in the gearbox market with its linear precision planetary reducers (input and output shafts are aligned) and right-angle precision reducers (input and output shafts are arranged at an angle of 90 degrees) manufactured by the German company MS-Graessner acquired by Nidec-Shimpo last August.
Both types of gearboxes are characterized as small precision reducers, mainly used in automated machinery applications such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment, packaging machinery, printing machinery and robotics industry.
Desch is a leading brand with strong presence especially in Europe and known for its world-class quality in large precision gearboxes and drive systems including clutches and brakes, used in applications such as machine tools, construction machinery, agricultural machinery and press machines.
Through the Transaction, Nidec-Shimpo will have access to the large precision gearbox market in addition to its current small precision gearbox market.
Furthermore, Nidec-Shimpo will sell their products through Desch’s customer channel in Europe. Likewise, Desch will expand their business by using NidecShimpo’s sales and service network in Asia and the Americas.
Nidec-Shimpo and Desch expect to mutually leverage their technology, brand strength and global customer bases, backed by Nidec’s finance flexibility.
The transaction is expected to have no significant impact on Nidec’s consolidated financial performance for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.
The monetary value of the transaction was not made public.
If necessary, Nidec says it will make additional disclosure on a timely basis in accordance with the rules of the Tokyo Stock Exchange upon determination of further details.