GUADALAJARA, MEXICO — Canadian mold maker I Thibault Inc. is in advanced negotiations to buy an established Mexican mold-making company.
“We are getting close but [the deal is] still not signed,” Sandra Tremblay, Thibault's business development manager, told Plastics News by email June 10.
In an interview on the company's booth at Expo Plásticos in Guadalajara, Mexico, in late March, Tremblay said that 70 percent of Thibault's business is in Mexico.
She said “all our customers have been asking” when Thibault would open a toolmaking facility in Mexico.
Based in Saint-Damien de Buckland, Quebec, Thibault has annual sales of US$12 million, according to Marc Thibault, Thibault's president and CEO, in the same interview.
Thibault is predominantly a supplier of molds for Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive industry suppliers, although the company will also service such sectors as domestic appliances, Marc Thibault and Tremblay said.
The Mexican company that Thibault plans to buy already works with Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers for Volkswagen AG, which has an ever-expanding, light vehicle assembly plant in Puebla, Mexico, one of only two in the Americas.
Founded by Marc Thibault's father in 1963, Thibault counts companies such as recreational vehicle builder BRP Inc., Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Toyota Motor Corp. and Reebok International Ltd. among its customers.
Outside Canada, it has sales offices in Puebla and in Dongguan, China.