October 4, 2024: An alliance of five battery equipment manufacturers and suppliers calling itself ESEMA — Energy Storage Equipment Manufacturing Alliance — announced a soft launch of the grouping at the end of September.
“The purpose of the alliance is to combine adjacent engineering skill sets to create next generation products for the evolving needs of battery manufacturing,” said Scott Fink, president of Sorfin and spokesperson for the group
“In the lead acid space, we are combining engineering resources and aligning with existing battery makers to create more standardization, traceability, and higher levels of automation
“In the advanced chemistry world, the alliance aspires to create new products that would be appropriate for the growing world of advanced battery manufacturing.
The five firms — CMW, Digatron, Kustan, MAC Engineering, Sorfin Yoshimura each holding an equal 20% shareholding — had been in discussions for over a year, said Fink, but now thought it was about time to let the wider marketplace know of its presence.
“We will probably make a formal launch of our alliance next summer when we have products to deliver. But at the moment we haven’t defined what exactly we are — we want our customers to dictate that. We intend to be host to a wide variety of products, innovations and other chemistries.”
There is also another reason behind the creation of ESEMA.
“I would say that a consolidating world encourages synergies, M&A, and other alliances to form,” said Fink. “We have seen consolidation on the battery manufacturing side over decades in varying degrees in different geographies, but we really have not had similar consolidation on the vendor side of the business.
“Hence, you now have many small, medium size vendors trying to cater to the needs of very large corporations. The vendor community feels a certain need to be as robust as possible to be able to serve customer needs.
“We are also aware that some of them are actively seeking to buy some of the smaller players at knock-down prices,” said Fink.
In the past couple of months two other alliances have emerged.
A trio of additive suppliers — Addenda, Atomized Products Group and Black Diamond Structures — announced in August their alliance would allow them … “to exchange technical expertise across a wide spectrum of battery additives to better create tailor-made solutions for any and all battery applications,” said Mark McCaughey, president of Addenda,
“Maintaining all existing supply lines while coordinating with two companies with excellent track records of product development makes this a no-brainer,” said Lee Puckett, president of APG.
Meanwhile TBS Engineering has also released news of its own alliance called the TBS Advanced Energy Equipment Alliance. “This alliance, comprising TBS Engineering, H&T Produktions Technologie and Pinco, is dedicated to optimizing plate manufacturing process control through enhanced parameter management leading to better performing, higher quality, more efficient and sustainable plates,” said Richard Taylor, managing director of TBS.
Although the two others alliances are well funded in terms of working capital and reserves, TBS has access to some of the deepest pockets of all. “A key pillar of the alliance’s success is access to capital and strategic management from TBS’s parent company, Marmon Industries,” said Taylor.
Berkshire Hathaway, with a market capitalization of around $970 billion, in turn owns Marmon. “This backing provides the financial strength and strategic oversight necessary to drive innovation and growth,” he said.
