Driving onwards GST AutoLeather

DRIVING ONWARDS

With GST AutoLeather’s acquisition of Seton Leather earlier this year, two very strong and identifiable brand names came together in automotive leather and are ready to take their new products and services into the fast lane. Abigail Saltmarsh reports.

0N January 5, 2011, GST, a leading global supplier of automotive leather, announced that it had completed the acquisition of Seton’s automotive leather operations in Europe and South Africa. According to Dennis Hiller, president and CEO of GST and Seton AutoLeather, the name of Seton AutoLeather will remain in Europe and South Africa. The combining of the two companies has enhanced both operations and serves to strengthen the company’s product offerings as the new business moves forward.

“The completion of the acquisition of Seton AutoLeather comes after two years of discussion and diligent work. I am extremely pleased that both companies recognised the advantages and merit of bringing these two industry leaders together,” he said.

“Legally, this was an acquisition but, practically, it was the seamless coming together

of two equally sized companies. We believe that our operational, development and product quality strengths provide us with unique capabilities that will benefit our customer’s world wide,” he said.

Global operations

With the move, two very strong and identifiable brand names came together, he explained. The initial phase of the acquisition of Seton’s global leather business was finalised in early September 2010 and included GST’s acquisition of Seton’s North America, China, and Korea operations. In recognition of its employees and customers around the world, GST will continue to market its products as GST AutoLeather in North America, China, Japan and Korea. The second phase, which included Europe, happened at the start of 2011.

With the completion of the acquisition, GST has now been successful in realising several of its key strategies, including having global operations, development capabilities, and sales facilities and resources in North America, South America, China, Korea, Japan, South Africa, Germany and Hungary.

Low cost manufacturing footprint

Seton AutoLeather designs and manufactures its products to meet the needs of the automotive market, said Mr Hiller. In 2004/2005, a decision was taken by GST to move all its manufacturing from the US to Mexico. Now the company has some 3,000 employees at five different plants across three locations.

“Since 2003/2004, we have established a significant business in China for the evergrowing Chinese market in which all of the European manufacturers have a presence today,” he went on. “We have three locations there and some 700 plus employees. Our business there was fairly substantial but the Seton acquisition has given us even more business in China.”

Staying in Europe

Bringing Seton AutoLeather into the business has also seen low cost tanning, retanning, finishing and cutting facilities, employing approximately 1,300 people, in South Africa, become part of GST AutoLeather. And European operations in Hungary are also now part of the family.

“That leaves Germany, where we have two operations: one for retanning and one for finishing. We employ 350 people in Germany, and we want to maintain our presence there. It is critical that we be close to the German

Rotopress

“Rotopress” is a very well known trademark in leather ironing and embossing field, active on the market with its famous models since the Sixties and up to today has developed new solutions aiming to obtain the perfect pressing for an ironing that guarantees maximum brightness and softness of the leathers and an embossing at low and high pressures, all these operations managed by high level of electronic very reliable and easy to use. The steadiness and reliability of Rotopress through-feed ironing and embossing machines are the main qualities of more than 1000 presses working all over the world. In addition to the usual range of production the last machine developed for the worldwide market is the new Rototransfer RTT that offers a perfect combination for ironing and foil coupling, purposely made for very soft skins. The Rototransfer RTT can operates at very high performances up to a linear pressure of 250 kg/ cm and constant working temperature of 140 °C at a speed over the 20 mt/min., with this machine is possible to obtain all kind of foil application needed to satisfy the most exigent customer that is in constant search of best quality achievement.

car manufacturers due to the special high quality of German auto leathers. Today you can find these leathers in German, French, Japanese and Korean vehicles.” he added.

According to Thomas Bee, General Manager of Seton AutoLeather in Europe, and Florian Schrey, Director of Design, the acquisition has given rise to even more opportunities for product development and new launches. Among those currently breaking new ground is Corinova, an eco-friendly leather using renewable natural ingredients.

“All of our automotive leathers are ecofriendly and all hides tanned by us come from farmed animals that are grown for the meat market,” explained Mr Schrey. “But this goes even further. We have developed this in a very balanced way to minimize the damage to the ecosystem.”

All the ingredients used at every stage of production have been chosen carefully to ensure they come from creditable, traceable, and where possible renewable sources. They also have to ensure a minimal C02 footprint for every element of raw material right through to final product.

“This has now been introduced and can be used in any environmentally friendly car concept,” said Mr Bee. “For the moment it will

remain a niche product and its future in a wider market will ultimately depend on the willingness of customers around the world to place value on an environmentally friendly product.”

The road ahead

The coming together of GST and Seton’s automotive leather operations has been hailed as a good move for Europe by Mr Hiller, Mr Schrey and Mr Bee. “We do hope to expand in Europe,” said Mr Hiller. “We would like to add business there and if that happened it would justify expanding production.”

He added: “With our customers in Europe, we will continue to focus on service. They need suppliers who are reliable and easy to work with. We need to earn our customers’ business in Europe and elsewhere each and every day. If we do that, there will be opportunities to grow. The automotive business is recovering and the acquisition of Seton Leather and our new products are further steps towards our participating in our customers’ growth on the road ahead.” n