Battery separator firm Entek has signed a deal to acquire the majority stake in Nippon Sheet Glass’ (NSG) lead-acid battery separator business.
The buy-out combines US firm Entek’s core know-how in material science, equipment engineering and design, along with capital, to fund future growth with NSG Group’s leadership and customer focus.
Both companies have executed the relevant agreements and plan to complete the deal in August 2021— subject to laws and regulations in the relevant jurisdictions, including NSG’ home country Japan.
NSG will hold a minority stake in— although actual percentages are not being disclosed— and appoint a director to the board of the battery separator business (BSS).
The new BSS company will own all battery separator manufacturing facilities in Japan and China for both polyethylene (PE) separator and absorbent glass mat (AGM).
The acquisition gives Entek more than 400 million square metres of aggregate PE separator production capacity (from its sites in the US, UK, Indonesia and Japan) to support its lead-acid battery market.
That figure does not include AGM capacity (Japan and China) or the firm’s lithium separator capacity in the US, the company’s VP of global sales, Clint Beutelschies, told BEST.
The deal was made when NSG decided the best option for the BSS business was for it to be integrated with, and managed by, Entek so that it could “develop further and enhance its value for its customers”.
NSG has supplied battery separators for lead-acid batteries mainly in Asia, including manufacturing footprints in China and a strong market position in Japan.
The firms are joint venture partners in the Entek NSG Separindo PE manufacturing plant in Indonesia, on which they broke ground in 2019.
In 2019, Entek announced plans to double the capacity of the Indonesian plant to 90 million square metres by the close of this year.