Freudenberg-NOK Abandons Plastics for Seals

Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Products (USA, a subsidiary of Freudenberg-NOK, Germany, itself a 1989 joint venture of Germany's Freudenberg and Japan's NOK) is abandoning the thermoset plastic gasket business as non-core, to focus on seals. The thermoset plastic gasket business was difficult for Freudenberg-NOK. While it offered sales and marketing synergies with the seal business, it also put the company into direct competition with supplier customers. Sealing Products' thermoset gaskets are manufactured from a proprietary polymer. Its only thermoset customer is DaimlerChrysler for Chrysler Corp. automotive engine cam cover gaskets. Sealing Products won other supply contracts for thermoset gaskets, but has since backed out of them. The DaimlerChrysler supply contract runs 2-4 more years, which Sealing Products said it will honor. In the end the potential for lost sales opportunities in the seal business outweighed any possible gains in thermoset gaskets. Thermoset gaskets are a $10 million segment for Sealing Products, while seal sales to automakers in North America alone hit $720 million in 2003. By 2008, Sealing Products expects seal sales in North America to reach $1.25 billion. Richard Allen, Freudenberg-NOK Manufactured Products CEO, said, "Our focus on sales has led us to become a single-source capable supplier. We can supply every single seal, be it for an engine, a transmission, an axle, or whatever." Freudenberg-NOK has international sales of approximately $7.5 billion, and produces more than 10 billion components per year across 57 operations worldwide. U.S. businesses include Sealing Systems, Simrit, TransTec, Flexitech, Corteco, Vibracoustic, and Dichtomatik.