From Zero to One: How EV Technology Group will Electrify Iconic Car Brands
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Yesterday, we signed a landmark deal for EV Technology Group — bringing Fablink Group, a tier one manufacturing and supply chain firm, into our family. This announcement is not only key to us owning and controlling our own manufacturing, engineering, and assembly capabilities, but amplifies our core mission at EV Technology Group: electrifying iconic brands and creating electric vehicles that are exciting to drive — beyond going from A to B.
The Fablink Group is the perfect match for our growing business to achieve its ambitions. Fablink has world-class expertise, over 750 highly specialized employees, and seven state-of-the-art manufacturing sites across the UK that amounts to a footprint of half a million square feet. With its growing Streamline Automotive division — an industry-leading business created to meet increasing demand for clean build assembly services for specialist brands and EV firms — Fablink is expertly servicing an explosion in UK electric vehicle manufacturing needs. Together, we have a joint vision, and together, we will bring back the joy of driving for the EV revolution.
Currently, companies around the world are racing to create new EV brands. While the EV story is in its early days, we are seeing clear challenges arise from this. Building a new brand from scratch is hard when customers don’t know you, and when you haven’t build an EV before. It means many players are taking a clean sheet approach. At EV Technology Group, we recognize the value in iconic brands that people already love and how leveraging nostalgia with the future of electrification provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity to produce EVs that people actually want to drive. Companies racing to adapt to the EV revolution will also face manufacturing challenges. Going electric requires supply chain integration, first-class manufacturing capabilities, and leading engineering technologies — which many of our competitors are finding hard to secure and ultimately deliver on their vehicle promises. In other words, it prevents them from going zero to one. With the acquisition of Fablink we have the in-house expertise, talent, technologies, to bring iconic brands to life as electric vehicles.
Strong business fundamentals
A huge part of the appeal of the deal, of course, is that we are also acquiring an incredibly strong business. Fablink is a profitable business with US~$95m in revenues last fiscal year. Under Richard Westley’s stewardship, Fablink Group has a fantastic customer base of leading global OEMs. It’s a customer base that we will continue to support, nurture, and grow in the coming months and years, and they’ll benefit from our ongoing investment. For us, a key element of this deal was that Richard, one of the country’s most experienced automotive executives, will be joining EV Technology Group as COO, and his amazing leadership team and every Fablink employee will remains in place.
We will be growing our internal customer base, too. Our strategy is that each part of the business becomes the customer of another part of the business — realizing commercial and cost synergies. Streamline Automotive, a subsidiary of Fablink, is already assembling the iconic MOKE — our most recent automotive acquisition. This is a template for our business model going forward. As we introduce other iconic brands into our portfolio, we can ensure quality, agility, and leading technology — benefitting us, and anyone buying one of our vehicles.
This acquisition is an important milestone for EV Technology Group. For me, it makes me so excited for the future — and there is much to come. Armed with Fablink’s heft, capabilities and experienced management team, EV Technology Group is better prepared than ever to electrify iconic brands.
