Commercial Vehicle Group, Inc. announced that it has acquired all of the outstanding common stock of PEKM Kabeltechnik s.r.o., an electronic wire harness manufacturer primarily for the commercial truck market, from the Prettl Group, a family-owned international organization headquartered in Germany.
PEKM has two operating facilities in Liberec, Czech Republic and one operating facility in Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine.
"This acquisition further expands our global footprint and provides us with a new customer base outside of North America in our key end markets," said Mervin Dunn, president and chief executive officer of Commercial Vehicle Group. "With its wide variety of wiring harness products, PEKM compliments our existing product offering and provides us with another well-positioned platform to continue our global expansion and sourcing efforts," added Dunn.
PEKM provides products to a variety of customers, including MAN, Daimler Chrysler (Mercedes) and Skoda, and delivers its products primarily to the central, eastern and western European regions. Total cash consideration for the transaction was approximately $21.1 million. The acquisition of PEKM is expected to be neutral to the company's diluted earnings per share for the remainder of 2007 and accretive by approximately $0.03 per diluted share for the full year 2008.
For the period of October 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007, the company expects PEKM revenues to be in the range of $13.0 million, operating income in the range of $0.6 million and depreciation in the range of $0.2 million. For the full year 2008, the company expects PEKM revenues to be in the range of $64.0 million, operating income in the range of $2.4 million and depreciation in the range of $1.0 million.
"In addition to PEKM's technical and manufacturing expertise, the opportunities for expansion and growth in these regions and end markets make this an exciting acquisition for us," said Chad M. Utrup, chief financial officer of Commercial Vehicle Group. "We have already identified additional opportunities for our construction market wiring harness products to be manufactured in the central and eastern European region and PEKM provides us with the ability to capitalize on these opportunities while avoiding significant startup costs. These opportunities are expected to start in early 2008 and are included in our 2008 estimates for PEKM. We look forward to working with PEKM's employees, customers and suppliers as we move forward."
Rolf Prettl, chief executive officer and president of the Prettl Group remarked, "CVG was a natural partner for this transaction with their global capabilities and commitment to their customers and end markets. We believe the CVG/PEKM combination strongly enhances PEKM's ability to compete in the global markets and CVG has a good long-term strategy for the future."