Injection moulders HB-Plastic GmbH (A-2100 Korneuburg; www.hb-plastic.com) have been acquired in their entirety for an undisclosed sum by technology and trading group SFS AG (CH-9435 Heerbrugg; www.sfs.ch) in a transaction backdated to 1 January 2001.

HB-Plastic, founded in 1958, has some 120 employees at two locations in Austria and Hungary and produces technical components, moulds and assemblies primarily for the automotive industry. The company claims to have a very high percentage of exports, with customers in many different locations; it supplies both the automotive manufacturers directly and their key suppliers. One of its particular specialities is the production of loudspeaker grilles and drive components. The locations in Austria and Hungary will be run as independent companies, under the same management, and will undergo further expansion.

SFS AG is an internationally operating, private stock corporation with a number of locations in Europe and the US which had its origins in ironmongery. Trading is still one of the company´s mainstays today. Alongside this, the company has built up an extensive industrial production division, focused primarily on metal-working by the extrusion and sintering processes as well as on the injection moulding of plastic engineering parts. The main market for this latter division, headed by SFS Kunststoffwerke AG (CH-9450 Altstätten), is the automotive industry. SFS has some 3000 employees worldwide.

According to a company announcement, the acquisition will serve to expand SFS´s customer base and production facilities in both the EU and Hungary. Investment decisions, material purchasing and production capacities will all be coordinated in future. Both companies share a very similar company culture, with long-term strategies being based first and foremost on well-educated employees and a high technical standard.