Although it was only announced in recent days, seating supplier Adient sold its Recaro business to Raven Acquisitions, a Detroit based, privately owned investment corporation in a transaction effective on 1 January, 2020.
Recaro Automotive Seating develops, produces and markets premium vehicle seats for OEMs and the aftermarket at three locations in Europe, the US and Japan and employs approximately 425 people.
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In fiscal year 2019, the business generated $150m in revenue, Adient said in a statement.
"With the new corporate structure, Recaro… will be able to focus on its core business – performance seats, ergonomic seats, and special applications – with shorter and faster decision making processes allowing greater flexibility to better meet the requirements of the market," Adient said.
It added the licence agreement and consequent right to use the Recaro brand on licence for the development, production, and marketing of premium car seats had been transferred to the new owners.
The brand licence itself is granted by Recaro Holding of Stuttgart, Germany, the holding company of Recaro Aircraft Seating and eGaming.
Adient, which is also selling its 30% stake in Yanfeng Global Automotive Interior Systems (YFAI) to Yanfeng for US$379m yet extending the Yanfeng Adient Seating joint venture agreement to December, 2038, recently announced what it termed "solid" first fiscal quarter results despite a non-cash one-off charge impacted net loss of US$167m or $1.78 a share.
Adjusted EPS was $0.96 while adjusted EBITDA of $297m was up $121m year on year.
The adjusted EBITDA margin was 7.5%, up 330 bps on Q1 fiscal 2019/2020
The seating supplier said earnings and cash flow growth, combined with the proceeds of recently announced "strategic actions" totaling around $400m, would be used to pre-pay a portion of its debt.
