Ayala buys majority stake in German automotive design, parts maker

The Ayala conglomerate has boosted its global industrial business with a deal to acquire a controlling stake in C-CON Group, a German engineering, design and manufacturing group catering to the automotive space.

Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest business house, also grew net income in 2018 by 5 percent to P31.8 billion on strong earnings contributed by its real estate, telecommunications and power businesses.

This year, the group has earmarked P262 billion in combined capital expenditure. A bulk of this amount is allocated to property arm Ayala Land and Globe Telecom, which have set aside P130 billion and P63 billion in spending money for the year, respectively.

A unit of Ayala’s wholly owned subsidiary AC Industrial Technology Holdings Inc. (AC Industrials) announced on Wednesday its acquisition of 75.1 percent of C-CON Group. The acquisition was made through subsidiary MT Technologies, which is headquartered in Bavaria, Germany, and has two production plants in Ingolstadt and Kinding.

Founded in 1991 and with eight locations and over 200 employees, C-CON and its subsidiaries deliver design, development, engineering, manufacturing, series production and process management services directly to leading German automotive original equipment manufacturers. These capabilities are seen to complement and strengthen MT’s existing competencies in modelling, tooling and parts manufacturing.

C-CON holds proprietary expertise in the production of parts made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer, a versatile material which provides high strength, light weight and aesthetic benefits in several applications, including automotive, aerospace and industrials.

“The acquisition and integration of the C-CON Group into MT is in line with AC Industrials’ strategies—to own, develop and bring to the market potentially disruptive technologies aligned with worldwide megatrends, and to deepen our presence in the global automotive space,” AC Industrials group president and chief executive Arthur Tan said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

In a separate disclosure, Ayala said its 2018 earnings performance was a result of strong equity earnings contribution from its business units, which reached P39.4 billion, or 10 percent higher year-on-year. However, borrowing costs increased as Ayala funded its investments with new debt, moderating its net profits.