STS
Vehicle components supplier to divest its Acoustics segment / Supervisory board replaces CEO
 Mathieu Purrey is the new CEO of STS (Photo: mutares) |
Because of the poor figures due to the coronavirus pandemic, STS Group (Hallbergmoos / Germany; www.sts.group), which supplies components to the car and truck manufacturing industry, is selling its Acoustics business segment – recently the company’s biggest loss-maker. Shortly beforehand, the supervisory board had prematurely terminated its contract with CEO Andreas Becker. The new man at the head of STS is Mathieu Purrey, previously the principal at STS majority owner mutares (Munich / Germany; www.mutares.de).
The Acoustics business segment consists of a total of five plants, three of which are located in Italy (Santhia, Desia, Pignataro), one in Poland (Międzyrzecz) and one in Brazil. The purchase price is said to be “in the low negative single-digit million euro range” – which presumably means that STS will by paying something on top. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in Q3 2020. The segment is being bought by Adler Pelzer (Villastellone / Italy; www.adlergroup.it), which is specialised in this business and became known in Germany among other things through its acquisition of HP Pelzer in 2010.
STS blames above all the acoustics business for its negative EBITDA in Q2. In fact, the segment reported a loss of EUR 2.6m, without which the group would at least have posted a balanced result, but perhaps not a profit.
With total sales of only EUR 61.7m – almost 40% down on the same period of the previous year – nearly all segments posted significant falls in both sales and earnings. The exception was China, where facilities were up and running again after the stoppages at the beginning of the year. Especially the supply of components to the local utility vehicle segment is booming. Sales in China doubled compared with Q2 2019 to a good EUR 24.6m, while earnings nearly tripled to EUR 5.2m.
Purrey, who earned his spurs among other things at Valeo, Federal Mogul and most recently as a consultant at STS in the years 2017 and 2018, wants to continue – and, if necessary, intensify – the cost-cutting programme to the end of the year. In the medium term, he plans above all to expand the North American business.
The Acoustics business segment consists of a total of five plants, three of which are located in Italy (Santhia, Desia, Pignataro), one in Poland (Międzyrzecz) and one in Brazil. The purchase price is said to be “in the low negative single-digit million euro range” – which presumably means that STS will by paying something on top. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in Q3 2020. The segment is being bought by Adler Pelzer (Villastellone / Italy; www.adlergroup.it), which is specialised in this business and became known in Germany among other things through its acquisition of HP Pelzer in 2010.
STS blames above all the acoustics business for its negative EBITDA in Q2. In fact, the segment reported a loss of EUR 2.6m, without which the group would at least have posted a balanced result, but perhaps not a profit.
With total sales of only EUR 61.7m – almost 40% down on the same period of the previous year – nearly all segments posted significant falls in both sales and earnings. The exception was China, where facilities were up and running again after the stoppages at the beginning of the year. Especially the supply of components to the local utility vehicle segment is booming. Sales in China doubled compared with Q2 2019 to a good EUR 24.6m, while earnings nearly tripled to EUR 5.2m.
Purrey, who earned his spurs among other things at Valeo, Federal Mogul and most recently as a consultant at STS in the years 2017 and 2018, wants to continue – and, if necessary, intensify – the cost-cutting programme to the end of the year. In the medium term, he plans above all to expand the North American business.
27.08.2020 Plasteurope.com [245796-0]
Published on 27.08.2020
German version of this article...