Gurit (Wattwil / Switzerland; www.gurit.com) is to sell the restructured remainder of its Composite Components business to Carbopress (Modena / Italy; www.carbopress.com), which is specialised in carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CRP) applications for the automotive industry. The acquisition relates to the Swiss company’s plant in Székesfehérvár / Hungary with 144 employees – see Plasteurope.com of 16.01.2019. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

This ends Gurit’s search for a buyer of the loss-making division. Back in fiscal 2018, the Composite Components segment hit Gurit’s profits due to falling demand, and it contributed to significantly reduced margins.

Since then, the business has been restructured to make it interesting for investors. In autumn 2019, discussions took place between Gurit and an unnamed potential buyer. However, these failed and led to plans to shutter the plant in summer 2020. This step has now been averted through the sale.

Carbopress is part of the Atomo group, a holding company specialised in the development, production and marketing of high-performance components made of CRPs, especially for automotive and motor sports applications. The company processes both thermosets and thermoplastics.

Provisional figures published at the end of January 2020 show that Gurit’s sales in 2019 rose 35.5% to CHF 576.4m (EUR 543.2m). This was mainly attributable to the acquisition of core materials specialist JSB, which can be assigned to the Kitting division. Organic growth for the Gurit group was 11% on a currency-adjusted basis.

The Composite Materials segment also increased sales compared with the previous year, by 12.8% to CHF 249.5m, not least because of strong demand from the wind energy sector. The Tooling business was weaker than in 2018, with sales declining 10%. Here, with new orders from Asia, a strong result was expected for 2020, though this may well be delayed as a result of the virus epidemic – Plasteurope.com of 20.02.2020. Sales at Composite Components rose to CHF 18.1m from CHF 14.7m in 2018. Gurit CEO Rudolf Hadorn will present the final full-year results on 27 February.