Bosch Rexroth buys South Korean automation specialist

Busan, South Korea; Lohr, Germany— Bosch Rexroth AG reports that it’s increasing its activities in Korea’s growing markets by acquiring Skatec Co. Ltd., an automation specialist, located in Ansan, near Seoul. Skatec’s 35 employees specialize in fitting plants and machinery with drive and control technology. It will be integrated into Busan-based Bosch Rexroth Korea Ltd. on June 1, 2004. This will increase Bosch Rexroth Korea’s staff to 130.

“With this acquisition, we’re continuing to advance our expansion-oriented Asian strategy,” says Manfred Grundke, Bosch Rexroth’s executive VP for sales automation. Earlier this year, Bosch Rexroth announced that it has started production at a new manufacturing site in Wujin, China. “With a rapidly growing share of production undertaken locally, we’re fully exploiting the above-average growth potential of the Asian market.”

In addition, Grundke was scheduled to take over as president of Bosch Rexroth AG on May 1, 2004. He replaces Winfried Witte, who is retiring.

Before the present acquisition, Skatec was an exclusive partner of Bosch Rexroth Korea. Skatec reportedly a Korean market leader in equipping plastics machinery with hydraulic drive technology, and it produces customer-specific hydraulic control blocks.

Bosch Rexroth consists of a merger of Bosch Automation Technology and Rexroth, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH. In 2002, Bosch Rexroth AG had total revenues of approximately $3.89 billion and 26,000 employees worldwide.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com

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