Formed by the moulder and suppliers Hella and Behr, HBPO will produce front-end modules

Formed by the moulder and suppliers Hella and Behr, HBPO will produce front-end modules

French moulder Plastic Omnium has joined forces with German automotive suppliers Hella and Behr to produce front-end modules for cars. The three parties will take equal ownership of a new company named HBPO from March 2004. It will be the only company exclusively dedicated to manufacturing front-end modules, employing expertise from Hella in headlamps and electronics, air-conditioning and cooling systems from Behr and bumper manufacture from Plastic Omnium.

The organisation will incorporate the assets of Hella-Behr Fahrzeugstseme, a five-year-old joint venture which has 550 employees on production sites in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, Mexico and three sites in South Korea. Plastic Omnium will host a dedicated research and development facility at its Sigmatech centre in Lyon, France.

Hella-Behr Fahrzeugstseme currently produces 1.25 million modules and has orders that will increase output to more than two million over the next two years. It expects sales to reach E350m this year.

A Plastic Omnium spokesman told PRW.com the new venture would supply parts to approximately 4 million cars, roughly 8% of the 55 million unit global car market. He said the plan was to raise this share to 30%. Additional manufacturing capacity could be added at any Plastic Omnium, Hella or Behr plant. HBPO will be headquartered at Lippstadt, Germany. The deal is subject to agreement from the competition authorities.