UACJ to Establish Automotive Business Development Division to Reinforce the Aluminum Automotive Materials Business

UACJ Corporation (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Mitsuru Okada) will establish the Automotive Business Development Division on October 1 to strengthen its aluminum automotive materials business in anticipation of future market growth.

In the business related to automotive panel materials and materials for automotive parts, the market is expected to expand rapidly going forward, both domestically and overseas. To meet this growing demand, UACJ is developing the overseas business that it has pursued to date in regions including North America, Asia and Europe, expanding its aluminum automotive materials business.
In North America, UACJ has established Constellium-UACJ ABS LLC as a joint venture with Constellium N.V. in aluminum materials for automotive panels, and the company has commenced operations. UACJ has also acquired a leading company that manufactures and sells automotive aluminum structural materials and other products and is known for its Whitehall Industries brand. This company has made a new start as UACJ Automotive Whitehall Industries, Inc.

In these ways, UACJ is accelerating its development of the aluminum automotive materials business. Amid these changes, the Company will establish the new Automotive Business Development Division, which will go beyond the conventional organizational structure, strengthening its ability to gather information on across departments and Group companies involved in the automobile-related business, as the Company has determined the need for a function to reflect this information in its consideration of business strategies and new product development.

The Automotive Business Development Division will gather, consolidate and integrate information related to the market environment and trends in new automobile-related products and technologies that use aluminum, as well as conducting marketing and promoting strategy formulation.

UACJ considers aluminum automotive materials to be strategic products. Centered on the new Automotive Business Development Division, the Company will consolidate the technologies and expertise it has cultivated over the years in order to further reinforce its automotive business. As a result, we aim to contribute to efforts to make automobiles more lightweight, and propose optimal solutions in response to customer requirements and future requests.