New York, New York – Hitachi Automotive Systems Ltd. has agreed to buy Chassis Brakes Intl. Group from private equity company KPS Capital Partners. The deal should close before the end of the year, following consultations with labor groups and regulatory agencies.
Chassis Brakes makes automotive safety solutions and is a global Top 3 manufacturer of automotive foundation brakes and foundation brake components. Headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, the company's primary products include brake calipers, disk brakes, drum brakes and parking brakes.
It focuses on developing safer, cleaner, smarter solutions that will support mega-trends impacting the automotive industry, such as connectivity, electrification and autonomous driving. Chassis Brakes operates 12 facilities and 11 engineering centers and sales offices in Europe, Asia, India, North America, and South America and has nearly 5,500 employees worldwide.
KPS created Chassis Brakes in 2012 to acquire the global automotive foundation brakes business of Robert Bosch GmbH. Under KPS' ownership, Chassis Brakes was transformed into an independent, fast-growing and innovative global business, and leveraged its industry-leading technological portfolio of products and capabilities into supply relationships with substantially all of the world's global automotive companies.
Chassis Brakes developed the Smart Brake and recently showed off a demonstration car operating exclusively with these electromechanical brake actuators (versus traditional hydraulic brake actuators) on four wheels.
Hitachi Automotive Systems President and CEO Dr. Brice Koch, said the transaction “is in line with our commitment to strengthen core businesses such as powertrain, chassis, and safety systems.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chassis Brake had more than $1 billion in 2018 sales.