Evonik sets up new venture to develop auto composites with Forward Engineering

Evonik Industries and Forward Engineering have established a joint venture, ‘Vestaro’, to develop composite solutions for industrial mass production of fibre composite components for the car industry.

Roberto Vila-Keller, head of the Crosslinkers Business Line at Evonik, said: “Vestaro is an important step in further expanding our partnership with automobile manufacturers. For many years now, we have been developing products to support their developments in lightweight construction.”

The core competencies of Vestaro are technology consulting and selection and adaptation of matrix formulations to meet specific customer requirements for efficient manufacturing.

Leif Ickert, General Manager of Vestaro, said: “In the joint venture, we are bundling expertise in engineering and in speciality chemicals. This means that we can offer even better tailored composite-matrix systems and even more competent service.”

Evonik is contributing its expertise in amine hardener Vestamin for epoxy resin formulations, and isocyanate Vestanat for polyurethane formulations to the material developments of the new company. Combined with the development know-how of Forward Engineering (previously the engineering division of Roding Automobile) in composite construction, the result is a unique potential for the realisation of efficient lightweight construction solutions.

Vestaro will be managed jointly by Evonik and Forward Engineering, with Evonik holding 49 percent of the shares and Forward Engineering 51 percent. The managing directors are Hans Görlitzer of Evonik Resource Efficiency and Robert Maier of Forward Engineering. The company will be based in Munich.