Haldex Names Åke Bengtsson CEO
Haldex appointed Åke Bengtsson president and chief executive officer.
Bengtsson had been acting president and CEO since March 2017. Before that, he was the company’s chief financial officer from 2015 to 2017.
“We have clearly showed that we play an important role in the technology shift towards autonomous-driven vehicles. Haldex will now speed up the execution of the strategic plan we developed last year,” Bengtsson said in a statement.
Also, Haldex announced rival Knorr-Bremse withdrew its offer for the company.
”We can finally put this public offer behind us and release the resources working on assisting the authorities with information. Ever since the end of June, when we received a very clear message from the authorities, we have known that there were no real possibilities for a deal,” Haldex Chairman Jörgen Durban said in a statement.
On Sept. 5, 2016, Munich, Germany-based Knorr-Bremse offered about $540 million for Haldex.
“Our focus now is to secure a number of long-term customer contracts that we were unable to sign during the bidding period and to work on a long-term, stable ownership structure,” Durban said.
Shareholders who have accepted Knorr-Bremse’s offer will have their shares returned to their respective accounts, according to the Landskrona, Sweden-based company.
Separately, Haldex introduced the Haldex reservoir purge valve, the newest advancement in the Haldex drain valve product offering.
The valve keeps water, oil and other contaminants from building up in the reservoir tanks by purging the tank every time the vehicle is placed in park, according to Haldex, which is based in Landskrona, Sweden.
“This functionality benefits the fleets by eliminating a concern if the driver doesn’t manually drain the tanks,” said Scott Walpole, product manager of air controls.
