Probably Spain’s largest automotive supplier, with revenues of EUR 2.1 bn, Grupo Antolin (Burgos; www.grupoantolin.es) has acquired 100% of the shares in lighting specialist CML Innovative Technologies (Besançon / France; www.cml-it.com). Seller is a consortium consisting of holding groups DDJ Capital, Cerberus and JP Morgan Securities. The deal still has to meet the approval of both the German and the Slovakian competition authorities.

CML, which specialises in the use of LED, generated sales of EUR 110m in 2010. Its portfolio includes interior lighting, rear lights and indicators and it operates seven plants located in France, Germany, the UK, Czech Republic, Romania and China, employing some 1,000 workers overall. The French company is to become the nucleus of Antolin’s new Lighting division. So far, the Spanish company has focused its activities on the manufacture of seats, door panels and rear luggage covers.

Antolin has also been working on setting up a joint venture in China. To this end, the company has been involved in talks with PU foam processor Inoac Corporation (Tokyo / Japan; www.inoac.co.jp) and Ningbo Huaxiang Electronic (NBHX, Ningbo, Zhejiang / China; www.nbhx.com.cn).