To date, carbon fibre producer SGL Group (Wiesbaden / Germany; www.sglgroup.com) has acquired 97% of the shares in Fibras Sintéticas de Portugal (Fisipe, Lavradio / Portugal; www.fisipe.pt) and is thus well on the way towards a complete takeover of the fibre producer – see also Plasteurope.com of 02.04.2012. In the latest addition, SGL acquired the 10.8% held by Quimifértil, in the wake of which a complete squeeze out appears imminent.

Almost simultaneously, SGL subsidiary Hitco Carbon Composites (Gardena, California / USA; www.hitco.com) secured an order from Boeing Commercial Airplanes to produce tailplane fins for the “Boeing 777”.

Hitco has been supplying composite components to the US Navy for years, including cladding for submarines. The company recently received the US Composites Consortium’s excellence award in the category of manufacturing technology for its advances in the automatic manufacture of autoclave-free composites.