Delphi to Spin Off Interiors Business by Year's End

Delphi Corp.'s $1.3 billion automotive interiors and closures business is on track to spin off from its parent and become an independent company by year's end, an executive says.

Lon Offenbacher, business line executive for interiors and closures at Delphi, tells attendees at the recent 2007 SPE Automotive TPO Global Conference that employees have selected a new name for the company, soon to be announced.

Delphi's Interior and Closures business includes products such as instrument panels, consoles, cockpits, door modules and latch systems. The business serves many OEMs throughout the world with operations in the U.S., Mexico, Austria, Germany, China and South Korea.

Roughly 50% of the supplier's business is with General Motors Corp., with high-volume applications such as the GMT 900 platform instrument panel. But Delphi also has showcase applications outside GM, including entire cockpit modules for the Mercedes-Benz M-Class, GL-Class and R-Class cross/utility vehicles, door modules for Freightliner heavy trucks and latches for more than 20 other OEMs.

A tentative deal to sell Delphi's interiors business to the Renco Group Inc., a private holding company, first was announced in February, pending due diligence. Renco invests in many industries, such as mining.

Delphi, which entered bankruptcy in October 2005, had sales of more than $26 billion in 2006 and is a major supplier of mobile electronics and transportation systems, including powertrain, safety, steering, thermal controls and security systems, electrical/electronic architecture and in-car entertainment technologies. It is hoping to exit bankruptcy in early 2008.

Offenbacher says his new company plans to expand globally and stress new material and process technologies. “We're looking for smart solutions to problems,” he says.

One of the technologies the supplier is working on is a new powder slush molding process for thermoplastic olefin (TPO) plastics. Slush molding has been a popular technique for other types of plastics, such as vinyl and polyurethane, as a means of creating high-quality appearance parts that include instrument panel covers.