EJOT Group Focuses on North American Market

With the implementation of the future concept “EJOT 2025,” the EJOT Group will focus more strongly on international markets outside Europe. An important building block is the strategic reorientation of the activities on the North American continent. For this purpose, the two long-standing joint venture partners EJOT and Accurate Threaded Fasteners, Inc. (ATF) have realigned their activities in the field of industrial fasteners.

The core point is the foundation of the new joint venture “EJOT ATF LP,” of which EJOT holds a majority share of 51 percent. In addition to the North American business of the EJOT Market Unit Industry, the company Accurate Threaded Fasteners, Inc. (ATF) will be merged into this joint venture. The headquarters are located in Lincolnwood, Illinois, north of Chicago, and there are two other, smaller locations in the state of Michigan, near the automotive metropolis Detroit. In the existing joint venture “EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico” (San Luis Potosi, Mexico), EJOT will also receive the majority of the company shares. In the future, the locations in the USA and Mexico will form a joint North American unit for the development, production and marketing of fasteners, such as screws and cold formed parts for industrial customers.

The U.S. company EJOT LP will remain in existence and will be managed in the future as a pure sales company of the Market Unit Construction (MUC).

“The new corporate structure will again improve our market position, especially in the automotive industry, and create new opportunities for both partners,” said EJOT CEO Christian Kocherscheidt.

The new American unit now offers a state-of-the-art product portfolio in the area of thread-forming fasteners. EJOT’s approach of reducing system costs for customers by pre-designing the joint is supported by further investments in application technology laboratories and simulation programs.

“In addition, the company is embedded in the global sales and production system of the EJOT Group, which improves service for North American customers—with the goal of playing a leading role in the U.S. fastener market,” Kocherscheidt said.

In the automotive industry, the growth markets with demanding and dynamic customers are increasingly located in North America and Asia. Kocherscheidt added that customers in Germany and Europe would not be neglected.

“However, we have to take note that the general conditions in Europe have become more difficult,” he said. As a medium-sized family-owned company, EJOT strives to recognize risks, balance them as much as possible and seize opportunities, Kocherscheidt explains. “As a technology leader, we can bring great benefits to customers in North America, especially in the area of e-mobility,” he said.

For the EJOT Group, these changes are linked with an increase of about 300 employees. Thus, for the first time, the family-owned company from Bad Berleburg with a total of about 4,400 employees has a predominant share of employees outside Germany.

Another change concerns the area of headlight adjustment systems: Up to now, the EJOT Group was active in this field with the EJOT SE & Co.KG in the European and Asian market, as well as in North America with the joint venture ASYST Technologies in Kenosha/Wisconsin. ASYST Technologies was founded in 1996 by EJOT, and the owner family of ATF and has become the market leader in North America.

With the increasing globalization of the European, Asian and American customers, both owner families decided to bundle the worldwide activities in headlamp adjustment at ASYST Technologies and to transfer the entrepreneurial leadership of the joint activities in headlamp adjustment to this company. In this new division, the EJOT plants will assume the role of production service provider outside North America. EJOT will also provide project-related services for ASYST Technologies in the area of product development.

For more information, visit www.ejot.com.