H.I.G. Europe Completes Sale of Anvis Group to Tokai Rubber Industries
HAMBURG – May 2013 – H.I.G. Europe announced today that it has completed the sale of its portfolio company Anvis Group to Tokai Rubber Industries (TRI). H.I.G. Europe is the European arm of global private-equity company H.I.G. Capital.
Anvis, which is headquartered in Steinau an der Straße, Germany, is a leading provider of critical, highly engineered anti-vibration products that are primarily used in the automobile industry where they improve the dynamic handling, comfort and road safety of vehicles. In 2010, H.I.G. Europe acquired the company and joined forces with the incumbent CEO Olaf Hahn to carry out a systematic process of advancement. This team succeeded in increasing the annual sales generated by the company to more than €300 million. Today, the Anvis Group has some 2000 employees and operates in nine countries at a total of 13 locations.
“As proactive members of the Advisory Board, H.I.G. Europe’s representatives provided the management of Anvis Group with a wide range of insightful and valuable advice. This constructively enabled management to optimise the company’s structures and processes to accelerate growth and to strengthen the earnings power,” commented Olaf Hahn, who will continue to act as the company’s CEO in the TRI Group. “Tokai Rubber Industries is the optimum strategic partner, which will enable Anvis to achieve a new level of global reach sooner rather than later. The two companies are perfectly complementary as far as product know-how and geographical positioning,” added Wolfgang Biedermann, Managing Director of H.I.G. Europe.
Anvis has an extensive track record of relationships with automobile manufacturers (OEMs) in Europe spanning many years and will be in a position to support Tokai Rubber Industries in acquiring new customers on the continent and increasing the rate of growth. At the same time, TRI will be able to access the capacities of Anvis in Europe for supplying its existing Japanese customer base. TRI will also derive significant benefit from expertise at Anvis in the development and manufacture of anti-vibration systems for compact and medium-sized vehicles.
About the Anvis Group
The Anvis Group, founded in 2000 by Woco and Michelin AVS, is a developer and manufacturer of innovative solutions for driving dynamics, comfort and road safety. The Anvis Group is represented in Europe, America, Asia and South Africa at 9 production sites and additional sales locations. The company’s services cover the entire anti-vibration system process chain from the concept to the production line stage. The Anvis Group product range includes chassis components, aggregate suspension, exhaust system hangers as well as decoupling elements and mass dampers. Apart from the automobile industry (e.g. Volkswagen, Renault, Peugeot/Citroën, Daimler and Ford), the company’s customers include the railway industry and other industrial sectors where oscillation and noise reduction systems are used. Ever since its founding days, the group maintains a comprehensive R&D program supported by 120 engineers, responsible for numerous product innovations and filed patents. www.anvisgroup.com/
About Tokai Rubber Industries
Tokai Rubber Industries, Ltd. (TRI), based in Komaki City, Japan, was established in 1929 and listed on the stock exchange. It manufactures and sells components for the automobile industry, including anti-vibration systems (AVS) and plastic hoses. The company’s main customer groups include automobile manufacturers and suppliers, as well as companies from various other industrial sectors. TRI employs a workforce of nearly 14,000 worldwide and currently generates consolidated annual sales of approximately € 2.5 billion. www.tokai.co.jp/english/
About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. Capital is a leading global private investment firm with more than €9 billion of capital under management and a team of more than 250 investment professionals. The H.I.G. family of funds includes private equity, debt/credit, growth equity, real estate, life sciences, and public equities. Based in Miami, and with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and San Francisco in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, H.I.G. specializes in providing capital to small and medium-sized companies with attractive growth potential. H.I.G. invests in management-led buyouts and recapitalizations of profitable and well managed businesses. H.I.G. also has extensive experience with financial restructurings and operational turnarounds. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. invested in and managed more than 200 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 80 companies with combined revenues in excess of €22 billion. www.hig.com