DThe investment company Mutares is forming a new automotive supplier and stock market candidate with billions in sales. He will be based in Frankfurt and will be called Amaneos, as Mutares board member Johannes Laumann announced in an interview with the FAZ. In two years he should be ready for the stock exchange – and then go on the floor in Frankfurt at a suitable opportunity.
Mutares is forging the company from three businesses that it has successively acquired over the past few years. According to the information, it supplies all major car manufacturers with plastic parts such as rear aprons and oil pans.
This week, Amaneos is to present itself to car manufacturers and the public, with an orange logo: “We will make sales of around 1.2 billion euros with this company, which is headquartered in Germany – Frankfurt,” said Laumann. It maintains 20 locations, employs 7,500 people and is “represented at all OEMs”, i.e. at all vehicle end manufacturers.
Amaneos is set up as SE & Co. KGaA. Because the company has more than 2000 employees in Germany, which is why an AG required a supervisory board with equal representation. “And I don’t like having employee representatives there when I want to decide on an IPO,” said Laumann.
The parquet as a goal
Because the trading floor is the clearly stated goal: “We are definitely preparing the company in such a way that this will be Mutares’ next major IPO.” At the time, Laumann said: “I think we need two years to make the company ready for the stock market. Then you have to see when there is a good window.” When asked whether Frankfurt would then be the scene, he said: “As long as the world doesn’t change completely: yes.”
The manager named Magna, Röchling and Adler Pelzer as important competitors. Polytech, Faurecia and Plastic Omnium. The central product group are plastic injection molded parts, outside of the passenger compartment. They are installed in both passenger cars and trucks.
From the point of view of the Munich investment company, the company has reached record dimensions, surpassing all other assets (asset). “It is by far Mutares’ largest asset and the first asset to generate over a billion in sales.”
The preparations for the merger – project name “Elisabeth” – have been going on for two years. In 2020, Mutares bought businesses from American supplier Cooper Standard in Poland, Italy, Spain and India, adding around EUR 180 million to its portfolio, with sealing products and rubber and thermoplastic components. Since then, the company has operated under the new name SFC Solutions.
“Platform with ambition”
The following year, Mutares took over the exterior parts business of the Canadian-Austrian company Magna, which had an annual turnover of 360 million euros at the time: it supplies vehicle end manufacturers with exterior parts such as radiator grilles, bumpers, side panels and spoilers and is now called LMS (Light Mobility Solutions). Locations are Obertshausen, Sulzbach, Idar-Oberstein and Esslingen.
From the outset, Mutares saw the business as a “platform with the ambition to further expand it in the plastic injection molding sector, away from the exterior towards more diversification in terms of products and the customer base,” as Laumann said in the FAZ interview at the time.
This is exactly what followed with the third acquisition last year: The Ludwigsburg-based company Mann+Hummel decided to concentrate entirely on the filter business and sold its business with technical plastic parts for everything to do with the drive train (powertrain). It thus parted with a good tenth of its turnover, namely almost 500 million euros. 1500 employees were transferred to Mutares.
Examples of the products are engine intake manifolds, charge-air manifolds, plastic containers and oil pans – all parts outside of the passenger compartment. This division, with production facilities in Bad Harzburg, Sonneberg and Laval, also got a new name and is now called MoldTecs.
Laumann sees Amaneos as ready for the transformation away from combustion engines. “80 to 85 percent” of the turnover was accounted for by products that can be found in e-cars. “We’re talking about front aprons, rear aprons, side panels, underbody – that’s what every electric car has.” “The majority of new orders that we are currently seeing are in e-mobility.” Laumann pointed out “that the largest new order we have received in the last six months is completely in e-mobility, with Volvo”.
From the perspective of the city of Frankfurt, it is a new opportunity to get the headquarters of a large company with the help of private equity. Years ago, this happened in a similar way in the chemical sector: the financial investor Advent merged the synthetic resin manufacturer Allnex, which largely consisted of the former Hoechst-Chemie, with an acquisition and then relocated the company headquarters from Brussels to Frankfurt.
However, Advent did not list it on the stock exchange – as could be imagined – but sold it to Thailand. Advent wanted to signal a new start with the new headquarters location, “so that no one feels taken over,” as the then Advent partner Ronald Ayles told the FAZ.
The considerations for the Amaneos headquarters are similar: The large plant in Obertshausen, for example, would be conceivable as the headquarters here, from where a lot is controlled today. But in his experience, a plant that is headquartered in a newly created group feels like a focus. “Then they no longer feel they are in competition with the other plants. That’s why a certain neutrality makes a lot of sense, I think.” The headquarters are in downtown Frankfurt near the Alte Oper – in offices of the former Mutares holding Donges. If the company went public, it would probably be too small.
