The Carlyle Group Signs Agreement to Sell Honsel International Technologies to Ripplewood Holdings

Munich, Germany - Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announced that it has signed an agreement to sell Honsel International Technologies to private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings. The sale is subject to certain approvals and is expected to be completed by year-end.

In 1999, The Carlyle Group acquired Honsel and completed the first-ever public tender offer by a private equity sponsor in Germany. In 2000, Carlyle acquired ACT, a Canadian-based metal castings provider and merged the entity with Honsel to create Honsel International Technologies.

“Honsel is an excellent company with strong market positions both in Europe and North America and an outstanding management team. We are pleased to have helped to build Honsel, taking it from a publicly-listed German company, and through the acquisition of Amcan Consolidated Technologies (ACT) in Canada, creating the strong European/US company it is today,” said Gregor Böhm, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group.

Honsel is the European market leader for automotive light metal parts, and is a provider to automotive companies including DaimlerChrysler, Audi, Volvo, PSA, ZF and BMW. Honsel operates seven plants in Europe. ACT is a leading provider of metal castings to the North American automotive industries and operates five plants in Canada. It is also a supplier to the mining industries in North and South America.

“We have built Honsel significantly over the past five years, and we are continuing to build our positions. Carlyle, in partnership with the Honsel family, has been extremely supportive all through its ownership of Honsel, and we look forward to the next stage of our development,” said Dr. Engelbert Heimes, CEO, Honsel International Technologies.

Carlyle was advised on the transaction by Latham & Watkins LLP, Millbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP and Lehman Brothers.

This sale marks the fourth exit from Carlyle’s European buy-out portfolio, since it launched Carlyle Europe Partners I in 1998. Since then, Carlyle has fully exited its investments in Le Figaro, Materis and Andritz.

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