Chinese battery manufacturer Leoch has strengthened its grip on the European lead-acid market with the buyout of Spanish battery distributor Meibat.
The Chinese company will set up firm Leoch Iberia with the goal of establishing a permanent market hold in the Iberia region.
Established in 1992, Meibat distributed industrial batteries in Spain from its base just outside of Madrid.
A new warehouse facility will be set up in Madrid to cover the network power and motive power markets throughout Spain and Portugal.
Meibat has historically focused on complementary sectors to Leoch in telecommunications, UPS, data centres, renewables and energy storage as well the motive markets.
The company is in the top 10 of battery and energy system distributors in Spain with all the major key accounts in the region.
Leoch now has direct operations in Spain, Greece, France, Germany, Italy and the UK.
The company has 10 regional manufacturing plants in China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and Vietnam.
Apostolos Tasiopoulos, Leoch’s vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Leoch previously had a representative in Spain but this major acquisition will enable us to establish a permanent footprint with all original equipment customers in Iberia.
“It was the only major European country on our target list where we didn’t have our own entity; it joins our existing facilities in France, Germany, Italy and the UK.”
