Sabaf Group has taken over 51% of the American manufacturer Mansfield Engineered Components (MEC), opening new business opportunities in the American continent. Operation that will bring also benefits to the Old Continent.
In the middle of summer, the primary American manufacturer of hinges for household appliances has become part of Sabaf family. In July, the sister company Sabaf America in fact took over 51% of Mansfield Engineered Components (MEC), an operation that will allow Sabaf Group to enlarge its ranking in the North American market, to consolidate the relationships with the great stars-and- stripes players and to optimize the manufacturing localization and the supply chain.
MEC will provide the great expertise gained on the market as North American manufacturer of household appliance hinges, designed and manufactured to satisfy the high qualitative levels and the challenging standards demanded by the United States market. «The targets that have driven Sabaf to the takeover correspond to the goals of our industrial growth plan by external lines, through takeovers targeted to the enlargement of the product range offered to our customers and to Sabaf’s international perimeter extension; therefore, they are growth targets oriented to the product range widening and to more penetration into geographical areas», Pietro Iotti, Managing Director of Sabaf, comments.
MEC can boast a decade-long history with the soundness granted in time by the same family property. The company has always worked with some of the most renowned brands in the world, designing solutions and generating results. «The main strongholds of MEC include the strategic ranking in the North American market, since MEC represents the leader manufacturer of hinges for big American appliances. Decisive were also the opportunities and the strong technical and commercial synergies that will emerge from the merging of MEC with our Group. Moreover, we have ascertained with the owners, who will go on managing the company, full harmony with our corporate values, strong cohesion and sharing of goals».
The Group’s force
Sabaf has decided taking over 51% of MEC in an interlocutory phase of the household appliance industry, to get ready to keep pace with the recovery due to a global market vision, writing a new important chapter in its own history of international growth and product range diversification. «The hinge market conforms to the household appliance market, which in this period suffers from the general slowdown of household goods, we expect a recovery in 2024. The emerging trends in hinges concern soft opening and soft closing hinges and eventual motors», Iotti adds. In virtue of the takeover of MEC, currently Sabaf further develops its capability of meeting the evolving market demands. The credit goes to a harmony of competences and know-how that make the company jump at the market head. «Through the takeover of MEC, Sabaf Group, already made up by CMI (taken over in 2019) and Faringosi (taken over in 2000), becomes the first world player in the design and manufacturing of hinges for household appliances, a distinguishing component for the final product quality».
Concerning this, the competences and the human resources of MEC will become Sabaf Group’s common heritage under all respects, paving the way to new in-house synergies with a high innovation rate. «The integration will prevailingly concern the product’s technical areas, purchase and IT areas, sharing the best practices and the know-how of each hinge manufacturing company of the Group».
The hinge of the future
Naturally, now we expect important novelties also regarding the evolution of Sabaf’s business strategies, in virtue of MEC takeover. «Through the sales network of MEC, we open strategic business opportunities of higher penetration on the North American market and, vice versa, more penetration of MEC products in the EU market, implementing the “cross selling” strategy», Iotti underlines.
The managing director’s words let us guess a significant evolution of Sabaf presence in the United States, to full benefit of the whole Group. «The composition of Sabaf Group’s turnover in the US will rise from the current 15/16% to 26/27% out of the total. Moreover, due to the direct presence on that market, the synergies with the rest of the Group will benefit the total business».
Coming back to the Old Continent, as Pietro Iotti has anticipated, the takeover of MEC will exert a significant impact on the European and Italian market. «All big customers, Italian and European, acknowledge Sabaf Group’s leadership in the hinge world, they have defined us as their main partners for the development of their future products. Thanks to the widening of the range offered, we will be able to permit more flexibility, availability and capability of satisfying our customers’ demands».
Each strategy, finally, is crowned by Sabaf Group’s clear vision of how the hinge for future household appliances will be, to whose implementation the takeover of MEC will now be able to give its valid contribution. «The hinge of the future will be an increasingly user-friendly, ergonomic and reliable hinge in time, with the capability of letting end-users perceive the high quality of the household appliance, in the opening and closing phase. We are going to manufacture it by using our advanced R&D centre, through the best technologies at disposal in our factories and an-ever rising presence and service of electromechanical components», Iotti ends.
