Hose maker Tristone wins €92m business contracts

Frankfurt, Germany – Tristone Flowtech has won €92 million worth of business awards over the first nine months of 2019, with over 40% of the deals relating to battery electric or hybrid passenger cars.

The German fluid management systems specialist also reported a 6% year-on-year growth in sales to €222 million over the nine months to end of September, the company said in a 30 Oct statement.

“This sales growth is a strong signal in declining markets, where most of our OEM customers and the other market participants are faced with declining sales,” said Guenter Froelich, president & CEO, Tristone Group. 

Tristone linked the positive growth to its broad OEM customer portfolio in the different regional markets, but said it recognised the challenging overall market situation impacting all players. 

“Related to this, we are seeing a first example of a OEM trying to use their market position to ignore contractual obligations towards our group,” the company said.

Group earnings (EBIT), however fell, mainly due to "the changed market environment" and the start-up costs for the company’s new plants in the US and India. The company did not provide earning figures.

“As a consequence, we will be reducing our high investment level,” noted Sonja Rossteuscher-Schuetze, group CFO.

For the full year, Tristone expects sales to grow 7% year-on-year to €311 million. 

For 2020, the company eyes an ambitious 17% growth in sales to €364 million, mainly driven by ongoing start-ups based on booked business with the global OEMs in Europe, NAFTA, China and India.

In August, the company’s recently constructed production plant in Mooresville, North Carolina, started with serial production of parts for the first OEM customer in US. 

Further manufacturing start-ups are planned for the unit in the coming quarters.

In June, Tristone opened its expanded facilities in Walbrzych, Poland, with a plastic plant as well as central engineering laboratory. 

In addition, the company is expanding hose production at the site, with plans to double manufacturing capacity in the coming years. 

The production plant in Poland supplies to global automotive passenger car customers including Ford, Volvo, RSA, Nissan, FCA, PSA, Daimler, BMW, Suzuki, JLR, and Ferrari.

A spin-off of the former Fluid Automotive business unit of Trelleborg AB in July 2010, Tristone operated as a stand-alone company until February 2017 when it was acquired by the Zhongding Group.