Clearlake Capital Group has announced a definitive agreement to sell Sage Automotive Interiors to an affiliate of Asahi Kasei.
The transaction is subject to the usual closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
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Clearlake is a private investment firm founded in 2006 and Sage supplies automotive interior materials – seating, door panel surfaces, and headliners – to OEMs globally and has offices and factories in the US, Japan, China, Brazil, Korea, India, Thailand, Mexico, and Europe
Clearlake described Sage as "a leading global supplier of specialty designed, high-performance technical textiles and microfibre suedes for the automotive industry.
During Clearlake's four-year ownership, Sage put in place a strategy aimed at "transforming the company into a diversified global platform".
It focused on expanding its product range and sales reach in Europe and Asia. It made several strategic acquisitions, including Miko and Apollo in Italy which enabled it to expand its technical capability, product line, European manufacturing and further increased sales to key OEM customers.
It also invested further in its Sage Wuhan joint venture in China to achieve more rapid growth in Asia.
"Our original investment thesis four years ago was to partner with Sage's management team and aggressively grow the platform by expanding both its product portfolio and geographic footprint," said Jose Feliciano, managing partner and co-founder, Clearlake.
"[The sale] announcement is a tremendous accomplishment for Sage and Clearlake and reflects positively upon the successful growth strategy executed during our ownership," said Colin Leonard, partner, Clearlake.
"Sage has become a market leading provider of high-performance technical textiles and microfibre suedes to the automotive industry and we look forward to watching the company's continued growth in the future."
