A note from Gabelli & Co. Research Analyst for the Asia Pacific region - Chong-Min Kang dated June 25, 2010.
I attended the Federal Mogul Asia Pacific Headquarters & Technical Center Opening Ceremony today in Pudong. It is located about 1 hour outside of downtown Shanghai.
It was a ribbon cutting ceremony. There were about 400 people in attendance. I am guessing about half were Federal Mogul employees. The other half were suppliers, customers, some trade magazines and some local government officials.
The facility is 9,000 square meters or about 97,000 square feet. They have approximately 200 people working there now and expect to have about 300 in total. As per opening remarks, the industry in China has been growing 30% over the past 5 years and they expect strong growth to continue. They stressed that they are not only in China because of low labor costs, but because it is growth market. The average age of vehicles in China is 3 years old, which presents a good future opportunity for their aftermarket business.
They provided a tour of the technical center where they showed off new testing equipment and explained how some of the equipment worked – pictures were not allowed.
I introduced myself to Jose Maria Alapont, the President and Chief Executive Officer and gave him your regards and congratulations, and he asked me to give you his regards.
The above information is not intended to be a complete description of any security or company and it is not an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security, nor is it a research report with respect to any company mentioned.
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