KOSTAL Group has today (April 29th 2023) concluded an agreement on the acquisition of Compleo Charging Solutions AG.
KOSTAL, a family owned business with over 100 years experience, speciailise in automotive parts along with solar charging inverters and bi-directional charging. With KOSTAL, a strategic investor is taking over Compleo who will expand its existing product portfolio and customer base into electric vehicle charging technology. KOSTAL, with their global HQ in Luedenscheid, already supplies technology which can be found in every second vehicle.
Compleo will join the KOSTAL Group and continue to operate as an independent entity under the brand name Compleo, continuing their European growth success in emobility.
“We are very pleased that we were able to bring our investor process to a good end. KOSTAL is the partner of choice for us with great know-how, industrial production capacities as well as a solid and sustainable corporate strategy,” comments Jörg Lohr, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Compleo Charging Solutions AG.
The management board around Jörg Lohr and Peter Hamela, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Compleo, will stay on with the company. They will continue to use their expertise in the successful restructuring of the past months and to accompany the integration into the KOSTAL Group.
In order for the transaction to be completed, it must be approved by the administrator and the creditors’ committee of Compleo. Furthermore, the court must confirm an insolvency plan for Compleo and grant the necessary regulatory clearances before the transaction completes. Both parties expect that the requirements will be met and that the takeover of Compleo into the KOSTAL Group can aim to take place in June 2023. Through the merger with KOSTAL, Compleo will benefit from development and production resources as well as the industrial company’s presence in more than 20 countries. The recently introduced Big 5 product portfolio can also be offered internationally with custom-fit expertise and experienced support. The Compleo Big 5 include five products in four to six variants each, so that users get exactly the charging options they need.
In association with KOSTAL and its innovative product strategy, Compleo is taking a big step towards its goal of becoming the market leader in the field of semi-public and public charging infrastructure in Europe. Andreas Kostal, CEO of the KOSTAL Group, describes his expectations of this acquisition:
“Compleo is known – among experts and users – as a an extremely capable market player and innovation driver. The highly motivated and reliable team, an attractive product and service portfolio as well as a broad and growing customer base make Compleo a partner of choice for us. We welcome the Compleo team to the KOSTAL Group. If we make skillful use of the complementary strengths of the two companies, we will give important impetus to emobility across Europe . Together we will write a European success story.”
Picture, Left to Right:
Dr. Gregor M. Schmeken, CFO, KOSTAL Group
Jörg Lohr, CEO, Compleo Charging Solutions AG
Andreas Kostal, CEO, KOSTAL Group
Dr. Bernt Ketterer, Strategy & Business Development, KOSTAL Group
Peter Hamela, CFO, Compleo Charging Solutions AG
About the KOSTAL Group
– Year of foundation 1912
– Turnover 2022 3.3 billion euros
– Over 19,000 employees worldwide
– Investments in research & development of more than 200 million euros per year
– 53 locations worldwide
In our fast-moving business world, we have been guided by our values for more than a century. For us, success is not measured on a quarterly basis – we think in terms of generations.
In the KOSTAL Automobil Elektrik division, we develop and manufacture electronic and mechatronic modules that can be found in every second vehicle worldwide. We are shaping the future of cars and electromobility with over 3,000,000 onboard chargers in the field. KOSTAL Industrie Elektrik offers its customers innovative solutions in the three core product fields of photovoltaics, drive controllers and measurement, control and regulation electronics. The main focus of the KOSTAL Kontakt Systeme division is the development and production of connectors, primarily for the automotive industry. As an independent company under the umbrella of the KOSTAL Group, SOMA GmbH is a competent system supplier for industry and product-specific testing and automation systems for mechatronic and electronic products. As an international family-owned company, headquartered in Lüdenscheid, Germany, we operate 53 locations in 21 countries on five continents across all business divisions.
