Maier to partner with India’s UM Group

Spanish automotive parts maker Maier has signed a partnership deal with the Indian industrial firm UM Group creating a joint production company in India.

Under the agreement, the Basque Country plastics processor, part of one of the globe’s biggest cooperative groups Corporación Mondragon, will create a jointly owned business Alpha Maier with its new partner.

The joint venture is to invest more than  5m to supply decorated plastic assemblies and parts to the automotive sector in India. Already, the enterprise has projects to start supplying Maruti Suzuki, one of the biggest car builders in the sub continent, according to Maier.

Alpha Maier aims to win further supply contracts from other global vehicle manufacturers such as General Motors, Honda, Peugeot-Citroen and Nissan with whom Maier does business in Europe.

This year, the new venture intends to create around 90 jobs and expects to achieve sales worth more than  4m.  Alpha Maier intends to consolidate its position as a reference supplier in the Indian market which is set to grow rapidly in the coming years, said Maier.

Maier’s project is the second such Asian alliance announced by a subsidiary cooperative of the Mondragon group in the past six months. Last Autumn, Citautxo which designs and makes plastic and rubber car parts and assemblies agreed to take a 50% stake in the Pune business of Indian pipe and hose producer Taurus Flexibles Pvt. Ltd. of Jharkhand

The automotive division of UM Group, which is a diversified industrial business, makes a range of products such as car rear-view mirrors, horns and instruments with printed circuit boards.  The Indian group also serves other sectors such as energy and equipment for electricity distribution.

Maier, an injection moulder and mould maker, is based in Ajangiz in the Basque Country and already operates five production plants. These include units in northern Spain in Gernika; in Iraizotz-Ultzama  in the Navarre region;  Maier Ferroplast near Vigo; at Attwood in the English West Midlands and in Prostejov in the Czech Republic. Maier has other strategic alliances in Turkey and Japan.

Its products include interior and exterior components such as front grilles, wheel covers, dashboard fascias, handles and trim.  It also makes parts for domestic appliances.

Maier also has a technology centre in Ajangiz, Spain where it specialises in developing plastics technologies for the automotive sector.  In 2011 Maier expected to achieve a turnover of 210m in 2011.

The annual group sales of all Corporación Mondragon’s industrial and retail businesses amounts to more than 13.82bn.  Eighty five per cent of its 83,000 employees worldwide are worker-members of the democratically run industrial cooperative group.