Metair completes Romanian battery factory, mulls sale of energy storage business

11th December 2019

By: Marleny Arnoldi

Deputy Editor Online

     

Font size: - +

JSE-listed automotive components maker Metair has successfully completed the installation of the company’s first lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing and assembly facility in Bucharest, Romania.

The facility will start producing cells from the second quarter of next year, at a capacity of between 600 000 and one-million cells a year.

The project marks the conclusion of Metair’s €13-million greenfield development investment for lithium-ion technology, which started in 2017.

Meanwhile, Metair in 2018 launched a strategic review process to enhance shareholder value, finding that the two business verticals, automotive components and energy storage, were in different strategic positions. The company, therefore, plans to effect a managed separation of the two verticals.

The board has received unsolicited expressions of interest for the energy storage vertical and, particularly, Mutlu Aku.

Metair said shareholders’ interest would be best served by either keeping the energy storage business as a separate vertical, or selling the business. The board would engage with shareholders on the matter.

Further, the company was seeking a successor CEO for its Turkey-based subsidiary Mutlu Aku after the former CEO resigned. In the meantime, management members Theo Loock and Sjoerd Douwenga had been appointed to assist the local team.

Two newly appointed independent nonexecutive directors Manfred Muell and Billy Mawasha will oversee the appointment of a new CEO to the Mutlu Aku board.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

Comments

The functionality you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION