Fair Friend Plans to Invest More Than EU$50 Million to Merge Italian Machine-Tool Makers

Fair Friend Group, a Taiwan-based machine-tool conglomerate, plans to invest more than EU$50 million (US$64.795 million) to merge two to three Italian machine-tool makers, becoming the largest machine-tool group in Italy, said Jimmy Chu, the chairman. After acquiring three Italian machine-tool manufacturers including JOBS, SACHMAN, and SIGMA early this year, many European machine-tool makers expressed willingness to join the Fair Friend Group. Chu added that Fair Friend will merge at least two more Italian machine-tool makers by the end of this year at a cost of more than EU$50 million (US$64.795 million), further solidifying its lead in Italy. Fair Friend is also aggressively negotiating partnerships with Japanese firms. After investing 100 million Japanese yen (US$1.27 million) with Waida, Cincom, and Marubeni to form a joint venture in Taiwan Waida Fair Friend Machinery in early 2012. Fair Friend has just reached cooperation agreements with Cincom and Marubeni recently, with the firm's subsidiary Leadwell Co. To build a joint venture with Cincom, mainly for integrated automotive production. Chu stated that Cincom will help Fair Friend to sell machine tools, forklifts, and other products to generate annual sales of 10 billion Japanese yen (US$130 million); While Ecoca Industrial Co., a subsidiary of Fair Friend, will cooperate with Marubeni in the lathe business. Source: CENS