ESKA Automotive GmbH has announced that its owners have sold their shares to Taiwanese group Boltun/QST with the change of majority ownership effective on 4th August.

ESKA’s brief, formal announcement, explained that the sale reflected the lack of direct family succession and the need to develop the company’s global presence. CEOs Klaus Gruber and Winfrid P. Stoffel previously owned the company. Mr Stoffel is understood to have been retained in a consultancy capacity.

China Fastener World reports that Boltun invested 45 million euros indirectly through two equity firms and Boltun Europe Holdings GmbH & Co is to acquire 85.7% of ESKA shares. ESKA’s 2013 revenue was stated to be around 75 million euros with adjusted profits of 2.82 million euros. The report quoted a Boltun spokesperson as saying that ESKA had been its customer for a long time but that the overlap in customer base was relatively low as ESKA supplies automotive OEMs and Tier suppliers whereas Boltun supplies primarily to distributors.

ESKA was founded in 1881 and according to its website has close to 400 employees in two German production facilities, in Chemnitz and Bärenstein. It operates as a full service partner to numerous well known car manufacturers.

Boltun Group, comprising Boltun Corporation and QST International Corporation, is a major Taiwanese owned manufacturer of fasteners with some 3,000 employees worldwide. Majority ownership rests with founder Mark Wu and his family, which started Boltun Corporation in Tainan in 1988 manufacturing automotive weld nuts. In 1996 Mr Wu became chairman of QST Holding merging four companies into QST International Corporation. QST was listed on the Taiwan TWO exchange from 2006. In 2011 the Group recorded sales of TW$10 billion (approximately 255 million euros) for the first time. Boltun Group has eight locations in Taiwan, nine in China, and also has logistics operations in Thailand and the United States of America. 80% of Group turnover is now automotive related, with 40% of sales coming from Europe, and 30% each from Asia and America.