Linamar Corp. has acquired three battery-enclosure manufacturing plants from Dura-Shiloh in an all-cash transaction for $325 million. The Ontario-based manufacturer of various industrial and transport-related parts and systems will organize the new plants as part of a new Linamar Structures Operating Group, and it promised to detail further plans during an upcoming conference call.
The former Dura Shiloh's battery-enclosure business include high strength steel and composite material designs with precision bonding.
“We are excited to complete this acquisition, a further step forward in Linamar’s transition towards an ‘electrified mobility’ world, bolstering our growing Structures and Chassis business portfolio,” according to a statement by executive chairman and CEO Linda Hasenfratz.
Two of the plants are in Europe – Skopje, North Macedonia and Strakonice, Czech Republic – and the third is an operation opened in January 2022 in Muscle Shoals, Ala, to supply aluminum EV battery enclosures to the Mercedes-Benz electric battery pack plant in central Alabama. The buyer has called the Muscle Shoals plant a “state-of-the-art, premiere battery-enclosures operation that Linamar will be able to showcase to other OEM customers in order to win future business.”
Battery enclosures for electric vehicles are typically metal or plastic structures that enclose the battery and protect it from external interference, and it may serve as an insulator or functions as part of a battery cooling system.
Linamar already has several battery-tray and enclosure products in production, in North America and Europe. Those include both diecast aluminum as well as welded aluminum assemblies.
