Fuchs strengthens presence in Sub-Saharan Africa through joint ventures

The Fuchs Group, the world’s largest independent lubricant company based in Germany, has acquired 50% of the shares of three distributors based in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. Fuchs has been working with these partners for more than 15 years. After the recent establishment of a Fuchs entity in Tanzania, these acquisitions further strengthen the footprint of Fuchs in Sub-Saharan Africa. The joint ventures employ 90 people and generated sales of around EUR21 million (USD23.2 million) in the 2018 financial year.

“Customers in these countries, who require lubricants and services in fields like mining, commercial vehicle fleets, general industry, agriculture, food and beverage, consumer products and other specialty applications will benefit locally from even stronger lubricants focus supported by international resources,” says Alf Untersteller, executive vice president of Fuchs Petrolub SE.

The wholly owned Fuchs entity Fuchs Southern Africa has developed these three Sub-Saharan distributors over more than a decade. “The distributors have done an excellent job in building the Fuchs brand in their countries and the timing is now right for Fuchs to take an equity stake in the businesses. Additionally, Fuchs sees significant importance in the development of Africa, where it also contributes sizeable efforts to the sustainable social development of the continent,” says Fuchs Southern Africa Managing Director, Paul Deppe.

“Fuchs has invested significantly in South Africa in recent times through the acquisitions of Lubritene, Lubrasa and Optiflow in 2014 and investments in a state of the art, fully automated grease manufacturing plant which opened in 2018 at its manufacturing hub in Isando, Johannesburg. This will supply markets in Africa and is also part of our current global growth initiative investing in existing and new plants focused on capacity increase in line with advanced technology. Further plant expansions are already being planned,” says Stefan Fuchs, chairman of the Executive Board of Fuchs Petrolub SE.

Fuchs expects the closing of these transactions in early 2020.