The deal includes four ZF plants in Johannesburg including two foundries, a forge and a machining plant.

It has been announced that ZF Friedrichshafen AG is selling Auto Industrial Brake & Chassis Holding Johannesburg (AIBC), its South African subsidiary. Investor Trinitas will acquire the plants. The contracting parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

The subsidiary AIBC contains a forge and two foundries, among other things, and produces components for the automotive industry, including brake disks. The four plants, which employee roughly 900 staff generated sales figure of EUR 71 million in 2012.

ZF signed a joint venture contract for the AIBC company in 1999, thus entering the South African components market. In 2006, ZF had taken over the entire company which operated as a local supplier to ZF’s Car Chassis Technology division.

Recently, ZF has strategically realigned its business and sold the subsidiary whose activities are centered outside of ZF’s core business and which worked autonomously in the global ZF production network. The sale is dependent on the approval by the South African competition commission authorities.

ZF is a leader in driveline and chassis technology with 121 production companies in 26 countries. In 2012, the Group achieved a sales figure of about EUR 17.4 billion with approximately 75 000 employees. In order to continue to be successful with innovative products, ZF annually invests about five percent of its sales (2012: EUR 861 million) in research and development. ZF is one of the ten largest automotive suppliers worldwide.