Conquering the Chinese market
Double digit growth with MCi – the market leader in actuators.
- Industry: Automotive
- Entry: 2012
- Exit: 2015
The company
MCi is the founder of the automotive mirror glass and powerfold actuators with global market leadership. Supplying over 40 million actuators per year to virtually all car manufacturers and with operating facilities and sales offices in Europe, Asia, the US and Mexico.
How it started
We were interested in MCi because of its leading position in the actuators market, its manufacturing capabilities, its strong drive for innovation in, for example, ‘active grill shutters’ and the plans of the management team to increase MCi’s footprint in China.
Facts & Figures
11%
Year-on-year sales growth
70m
Actuators sold, starting with 40m in 2012
4
Present in all four key car production regions in China
Establishing a foothold in China
Triggered by the initial plans of management to establish a foothold in China, we worked with the team to realize that ambition: we established small regional offices in the four main automotive areas with sales representatives and occasionally Sales and R&D engineers regionally available to ensure close relations to tier-1 suppliers and OEMs. With local market intelligence to ensure the right focus for Western OEMs and local OEMs aiming for the mid-to-high-end vehicles market and expanding overseas. We focused on customer intimacy and started co-development with local OEMs and providing on-site engineers if necessary.
The results
Over the next three years of our holding period, we managed to help MCi grow with double digits year on year, thereby nearly doubling the business by the end of Egeria’s investment period in 2015. But there wasn’t a single silver bullet that did the trick. A rigorous focus on key priorities, combined with high execution power, close cooperation between MCi management and Egeria, and a positive market trend led to strong financial performance in the period between 2012 and 2015.