The mobility revolution – including alternative drive systems, autonomous vehicles, digitalisation and high-voltage systems – is placing a considerable burden on the automotive industry. Not all automotive groups and not all suppliers are expected to survive this change. The discontinuation of some technologies and applications as well as the trend towards bicycles, public transport and car sharing are likely to lead to a wave of consolidation in the industry – although this has only become apparent to a limited extent so far. This is because the change is costing suppliers a lot of money, not least because they have to shoulder parallel development efforts for vehicles with combustion engines and electric vehicles, at least for a while – as interior fitter, Dr. Schneider (Kronach / Germany; www.dr-schneider.com) reported recently, for instance.

What is happening now at Hella (Lippstadt / Germany; www.hella.com) could therefore be seen as a beacon for the entire industry: The families that own the business, Hueck and Röpke, apparently want to sell their shares in the company – a majority of 60%, all in all. The latest interested party is said to be Knorr-Bremse (Munich / Germany; www.knorr-bremse.com). The Bavarian firm is the only one to have officially declared an interest so far. “Knorr-Bremse confirms that it is generally interested in acquiring the block of 60% of the shares in Hella GmbH & Co KGaA held by the founding family,” reads the comment from the state capital. The company, which is primarily supplying commercial vehicle and train manufacturers, points out that the talks are still at a very early stage, and that it is not clear if a transaction will actually take place.

The takeover would create the fourth-largest German automotive supplier after Bosch, Continental and ZF Friedrichshafen, with pro forma sales of around EUR 13 bn. Knorr-Bremse and Hella are almost the same size in terms of turnover, with EUR 7 bn and just under EUR 6 bn, respectively, but Hella has a few more plants and employees. For Knorr, the deal could be a stroke of luck – after all, there is hardly any overlap between the respective portfolios, and electronic products combined with plastics processing appear much less susceptible to the change mentioned earlier.

Hella, on the other hand, is likely to be dependent on the greater size in order to survive global competition in the long term. CEO Rolf Breidenbach recently emphasised the “solid, sustainable business model”. However, he also cautioned that the company needed to invest “massively” in future themes such as electric mobility, autonomous driving, digital lighting and software.

With the acquisition of Hella, Knorr-Bremse would also gain access to front module manufacturer HBPO (Lippstadt / Germany; www.hbpogroup.com), a joint venture between Hella and Plastic Omnium (Levallois / France; www.plasticomnium.com), as well as to the existing cooperations with both Plastic Omnium and competitor Faurecia (Nanterre / France; www.faurecia.com) for headlamp and lighting technologies outside and inside the vehicle.

Knorr-Bremse, however, does not seem to be the only interested party: alongside several financial investors, Faurecia is also said to have thrown its hat into the ring. However, a spokesperson did not provide confirmation on the matter in response to a Plasteurope.com query.