Carbures sells automotive technology for 1.6 million to a Tier-1 in Mexico

Carbures signs a new contract for the sale of test lines for electronic steering of high production cars with a Tier 1 world leader in Mexico that manufactures cars for many leading brands in Mexico and the NAFTA zone.

• The Company will manufacture this automotive technology, with its own engineering and software developments, at its plant in Querétaro, Mexico, and thus responds to the needs of its customers to become a global supplier to standardize production and test equipment as much as possible.

Madrid, May 18, 2018. Carbures begins to accelerate in the automotive area, settles in Mexico and achieves an important contract with a first-level player in the automotive sector for the NAFTA zone. The Company has signed a new contract with a global Tier1 in Mexico for which it provides seven lines of electronic steering testing, in high production, for 1.6 million euros. Carbures is going to manufacture the automotive technology lines at its Querétaro plant and will deliver them, ready and equipped with its own engineering and software, unique in the sector in the world, which allows the control of the driving system of cars at industrial manufacturing rates. Without counting on this new contract, the automotive division of Carbures adds 13.3 million euros in contracts of this pioneering technology of automotive in the first quarter of the year, which is about 33 percent of the total turnover in this 2017 activity line.

Carbures starts with the manufacture of the seven test lines of the electronic steering of cars in its plant in Mexico, which has 1,700 square meters of production area. The delivery time of the testing lines is between seven and eight months and in the manufacturing process about 70 workers will work. The differential value of the test lines that Carbures manufactures lies in its robust industrial design and its high level of integrated software, which allow to verify that a car's direction works correctly in about 32 seconds, at a rate of about one hundred directions to the time. After the manufacturing process, Carbures automotive engineers verify that each line works correctly and delivered, installed, turnkey, in the factories that this Tier 1, leader of the NAFTA area in the production of car steers for brands and models of all kinds, operates in the region.

Without including this new contract, the division of Mobility Machinery, which manufactures technology for the automotive sector, which ended 2017 with a positive recurring EBITDA (2.493 million), adds contracts for 13.3 million in the first quarter of 2018, which is already 33 percent with respect to the turnover of the entire automotive division in 2017. Carbures thus maintains the path of growth both in the production and manufacture of parts and structures in composite materials, and in the sale of production lines with its own technology (collaborative robotics and artificial intelligence). In the next few years it is expected that all vehicles have electric power steering, which replaces the hydraulic.

With this new contract, Carbures is positioned as the second company in the world in automotive electronic direction testing lines because it works on this industrial technology since it began to be used in the sector and is a reference for Tier1 companies or final manufacturers in the main production poles of the sector in the world: China, the United States, Mexico and Europe.

Rafael Contreras, president of Carbures, affirms that "the behavior of our automotive line continues to improve and will accompany the enormous journey that has both the transformation of the metal sector to composites, as well as the technological evolutions that allow manufactures higher speed, like our electronic direction testing lines. " Contreras adds that "Carbures is a company which lines of activity have already closed last year with positive EBITDAs and we still consider this company as a growth company, which is at the forefront of the three sectors in which it operates, aeronautics, automotive and civil work, but that still has a long way ahead. "

Last year, the automotive line of business manufactured 74 lines of testing and assembly and 543,643 pieces, in its plants in El Burgo de Osma (Spain), Manresa (Spain) in Tichy (Poland), Querétaro (Mexico) and Suzhou ( China) reference automotive poles in the world. Carbures manufactures various car and motorcycle parts in composite materials such as rims, structural parts, bumpers, rearview mirrors, ailerons, shift cams, fuel tanks, saddles, and so on. With this technology, Carbures provides its own solutions to the manufacturing processes of the Tier1 or the final manufacturers and manufactures in situ, something that also differentiates Carbures within the sector.

The global Tier1 with which it has signed this new contract in Mexico (whose name can not be revealed for reasons of confidentiality set out in the document) assesses the industrial capacity and technological developments of Carbures, as well as its capacity to manufacture it where it requires, the turnkey delivery engineering and commissioning by Carbures engineers in their plants. The Tier1 manufactures in Mexico, for the entire NAFTA zone, for brands such as Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, BMW, etcetera. In electronic power steering is the first global manufacturer.

Carbures opened the Querétaro plant (Mexico) for production in the automotive sector and has a plant in Mexico D.F. for the civil works activity. Its facilities there are composed of three production halls with an industrial area of more than 1750 square meters, to which we must add about 250, office. Around this automotive plant that Carbures has in Querétaro (Mexico) are the main customers, current and potential, not only from Mexico but from a large part of the US market.