Ikeda Bussan in the family
Johnson Controls acquires Ikeda Bussan
September 1, 2000 (PD: 201509)
Montage of Johnson Controls automotive seating products, 1998
On September 1, 2000, Johnson Controls completed its acquisition of Ikeda Bussan, a Japanese automotive seating supplier.
Ikeda, the primary supplier of seating to Nissan, had net sales of $1.2 billion in 1999. Johnson Controls CEO James Keyes stated that “the acquisition of Ikeda Bussan is aligned with our strategy to only acquire companies which will strengthen our customer relationships, our presence in a given geographic region, or our technology offerings. Ikeda Bussan meets all three criteria.”
Established in 1948 in Yokohama City, Ikeda was headquartered in Ayase City, Kanagawa. It had five manufacturing plants in Japan and a total of 4,200 employees. Ikeda had been a joint venture partner of Johnson Controls since 1986, when Ikeda-Hoover was formed with a plant at Tyne and Wear, England, which supplied complete seating and interior trim components for Nissan vehicles produced in the United Kingdom.
The second joint venture between the two companies was Vintec Co., which was formed in October 1988 and supplied complete seating systems and headliners to Nissan from two manufacturing facilities in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
