Taiwanese giant Foxconn invests 35 million in Magnax e-motors from Kortrijk
The Taiwanese-Chinese group Foxconn is acquiring a majority stake in Magnax, a Kortrijk-based developer of innovative electric motors. Together, they plan to produce them industrially starting next year.
The essence
- Taiwanese Foxconn has acquired a majority stake in the Kortrijk-based electric motor developer Magnax.
- With new capital, Magnax aims to take the step from development to large-scale production.
- Production in China is scheduled to start next year. Research and development will remain in Belgium.
Foxconn is acquiring the Belgian company Magnax through its subsidiary Pan International. Both companies had already announced this in January, but the deal was only legally finalized this month, including a government FDI screening for foreign investments in sensitive sectors.
The group acquires a narrow majority of the capital through a contribution of 35.5 million euros in new shares. The existing shareholders – including the government holding company SFPIM, the German Hirschvogel, and the Vietnamese BIG Capital – remain on board. One of the private investors in the company is former Red Devil Dries Mertens.
Materials
In data centers, motors must run around the clock to generate cooling. With our motors, this can be done more than 4 percent more efficiently. – Daan Moreels, co-founder, Magnax
Magnax develops axial flux motors, a type of electric motor that is lighter and more compact than conventional radial flux motors. The technology and production process are more complex, but the motors offer many advantages, says co-founder Daan Moreels. ‘You need fewer materials to make the motors. In the mass production phase, those materials account for up to 80 percent of the cost price.’
Axial motors also score better in terms of energy efficiency. ‘In data centers, motors must run around the clock to generate cooling. With our motors, this can be done more than 4 percent more efficiently.’ Another advantage is that the motors are more compact and easier to install in some machines than the radial variant.
For Magnax, the acquisition by Foxconn marks the step from a research and development player to an industrial manufacturer. “We have been working on the development of our motors for years. That is a time-consuming and expensive process,” says Moreels. “In 2020 and 2022, we raised 29 million euros in two installments. Today, we are at a technical level that allows us to take the step towards mass production.”
Together with Foxconn, Magnax is building a factory in the eastern Chinese coastal region between Shanghai and Nanjing, where many manufacturers of electric motors and EV technology are based. The first motors are expected to roll off the assembly line starting next year.
“In China, we have the advantage of having easy access to certain materials, such as magnets,” says Moreels.
Robots
Another advantage of Foxconn as a shareholder is that the company is active in many markets. The company is best known as Apple’s subcontractor for the production of iPhones, but it also builds electric vehicles, robots, cooling systems, and industrial drives, among other things—all applications for which the Kortrijk-based motors can be useful.
Moreels does not rule out the possibility that Magnax will eventually start producing in Europe as well, although there are no concrete plans for this yet.
Initially, the focus is on relatively simple applications, such as motors for fans, pumps, and machines. These are applications where the motors can be air-cooled, which is less complex than the oil-cooled motors for high-performance applications like electric cars or robots, says Moreels. However, the long-term goal is to equip those products with drives as well.
Moreels does not rule out the possibility that Magnax will eventually start producing in Europe as well, although there are no concrete plans for this yet. Research and development will in any case remain in our country, he says. Magnax has about thirty employees in Kortrijk. The company generates a modest turnover of around 1 million euros, mainly from the sale of prototypes. Moreels is not allowed to disclose the new owners’ revenue targets, but calls them ‘ambitious’.