Lear Corp. said Thursday it will acquire a Kongsberg Automotive business unit specializing in producing comfort seating solutions.
Lear, a Southfield, Mich.-based supplier of seating and electrical systems, said the deal will aid its vertical integration and help grow product offerings to include a larger suite of comfort seating solutions to enhance vehicle performance and packaging.
Lear said it will pay $203 million for Kongsberg Automotive’s Interior Comfort Systems unit. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.
“This acquisition represents an opportunity for Lear to capture more content-per-vehicle by providing an optimized solution with a better value proposition for our customers, in terms of cost, quality and performance,” Lear CEO Ray Scott said in a news release.
Kongsberg Automotive is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Its ICS business unit employs more than 3,800 people in facilities in Asia, Europe and North America. Those employees are expected to be integrated into Lear.
“I am convinced our ICS employees will be in good hands and continue to thrive at a much larger scale at Lear, our longstanding partner,” Kongsberg Automotive CEO Joerg Buchheim said in a news release. “For Kongsberg Automotive, the transaction provides us the room for additional financial maneuvering and allows us to fully concentrate on our path towards highly-focused and profitable growth.”
Lear ranks No. 9 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers, with worldwide parts sales to automakers of $17 billion in 2020.
