Interplex has spun out its automotive connector business into a new company called Ennovi.
Both Interplex and Ennovi will still be owned by parent company Blackstone Private Equity.
This is in response to growing electrification of vehicles and will see Ennovi involved more in the
design side.
“We started as a business unit focussed on the automotive market,” said Ennovi CEO Stefan
Rustler. “We used to do less design because the ICE market was very mature.
With EVs, they are coming out with new products completely. This lets us co-design with the
customer.”
The move has seen the company employ “significant numbers” of design engineers in the past
year.
“We need engineers for the design part and engineers to get it production ready,” he said. “It is
one thing to build ten products in a lab, but you need to scale that, which is where the legacy
Interplex business comes into play.”
The mobility business now designs, develops and engineers interconnects for battery, power
Interplex sets up Ennovi to handle EV connectivity and signal systems for EVs.
It designs and engineers battery, power platforms and signal interconnects.
Interplex will continue in the datacom and industrial market with mechanical and busbar
technologies.
Ennovi has its headquarters in Singapore plus four R&D centres and 15 manufacturing sites. It
employs more than 7000 people.
Whereas the company once saw itself as a tier two supplier with its main customers being the
likes of Continental and Bosch, it now sees itself in tiers one, two and three, working on one
hand directly with the car makers to design EVs and on the other with battery makers and
semiconductor companies.
“We are building on what we have and expanding,” said Rustler, “to be a tier one ourselves but
still being a tier two and going to the battery pack makers. It is a reposition because the market
is changing. The rebrand is a message that we have changed.”
This, he said, also involved a change in the mindset of the company.
“We once got involved a year or less before the start of production,” he said. “Now we start with
the product development and that is new to a large part of the company.”
