Fair Friend Group Kicks off US$1 B. Investment Plan

Taipei, Feb. 9, 2012 (CENS)--The Fair Friend Group, Taiwan's largest machine-tool conglomerate, has kicked off a five-year US$1 billion investment plan to set up plants across the Taiwan Strait, invest overseas, engage in overseas merger and acquisition.

So far this year, the group has acquired five overseas machine-tool firms in three nations, including Jobs, Sigma and Sachman of Italy, DMC of South Korea and a Japanese machine-tool firm with 100 years of history, as well as nine factories and five brands. Moreover, the group will acquire two machine-tool firms by the middle of this year.

The chairman Jimmy Chu says the acquisition of the three Italian machine-tool firms will help to upgrade manufacturing skill as Italy is the world's fourth-largest machine-tool manufacturer, only behind China, Japan and Germany, as well as turn Fair Friend into one of Italy's largest machine-tool conglomerates this year.

Chu says that Jobs, specializing in production of five-axis high-speed double-column machining centers, is Italy's largest machine-tool manufacturer and a top-3 in Europe. About 60% of Jobs's products use linear motors to meet needs of the aerospace, nuclear energy, wind generation, engineering machinery and automotive sectors; while the acquisition of Jobs can fill in the technological gap in Taiwan's machine-tool industry.

Sachman focuses on production of large floor-type boring machines, and five-axis CNC boring machines used in the industries of aerospace, automobile parts, molds and healthcare.

DMC is South Korea's six-largest machine-tool manufacturer, with the acquisition to help Fair Friend raise annual sales in South Korea to over US$100 million from NT$100 million.