Mitsui Acquires Stake in Hexagon Composites

Mitsui has announced its entered into an agreement to acquire 25% of shares in Hexagon Composites.

The company plans to invest a total of approximately 833 million in NOK(¥11.0 billion JPY) in Hexagon, which is the world’s biggest manufacturer of plastic-lined carbon fibre reinforced pressure cylinders.

For almost 20 years, Mitsui and Hexagon have built a strong partnership centred around the sales of composite cylinders. By drawing on this equity participation and business alliance, Mitsui will use its assets and global network to expand Hexagon’s business, while also contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector.

This investment spans two of those key strategic domains: “mineral resources and materials”, and “mobility”. In April 2015, Mitsui signed an agreement concerning cooperation on composite materials research and an equipment lease agreement with the Innovative Composite Materials Research and Development Centre (“ICC”) of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology. Mitsui and ICC have since commenced collaborative development of new manufacturing methods for automotive parts and other products made of carbon fibre composite materials.