Building on their 15 years of successful collaboration in the field of automotive car seats – embodied by their Shanghai Yanfeng Johnson Controls Seating joint venture – automotive supplier Johnson Controls (JCI, Milwaukee, Wisconsin / USA; www.johnsoncontrols.com) and China’s Yanfeng Automotive Trim Systems (Shanghai) have set up a new jv for interior systems. The EU competition authorities recently okayed the venture, without imposing any additional requirements.

The new automotive interiors supplier is worth about USD 7.5 bn and specialises in the production of dashboards, centre consoles and door cladding, among others. Part of the holding group Huayu Automotive Systems (Hasco), Yanfeng – which also supplies Chinese automotive producer Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) – holds a 70% stake in the jv, with the remaining 30% in JCI’s hands.

The US group expects to see record results for its three business segments Automotive Experience, Power Solutions and Building Efficiency in 2015, all of which are predicted to lift results by 11%. Sales are also expected to rise, even if group CEO Alex Molinari cautioned that JCI’s Chinese operations, including its Automotive Interiors business – in which Yanfeng holds a stake – are not considered as consolidated joint ventures. The latter are expected to see a drop in sales following the merge, as is JCI’s automotive seats business.