Nexteer Automotive gears up for China success

Nexteer Automotive, a parts supplier, is benefiting from using a globalized management team, the company chairman said.

"We enjoy a global source of executives and managers as well as clients," Zhao Guibin, also chairman of AVIC Automobile Industry, told China Daily. "Though AVIC Automobile Industry is a State-owned company, we stick to market rules."

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AVIC Automobile, a subsidiary of aircraft maker Aviation Industry Corp of China, acquired the controlling interests in Nexteer in 2011 in an attempt to expand AVIC's clout in the auto industry.

"We have adopted a set of assessment mechanisms to review the performance of Nexteer's management team and commissioned a third-party human resource consulting firm to help evaluate salary for executives," Zhao said.

Nexteer is headquartered in the United States, in Saginaw, Michigan. The company, which manufactures steering and driveline products, was established in 1906 and was part of General Motors for nearly a century. In 2010, Nexteer was acquired by Pacific Century Motors, a joint venture controlled by AVIC Automobile Industry.

It has more than 50 customers globally, including BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Ford and Toyota, as well as automakers in India and China. With a global workforce of about 10,000, the company has 20 manufacturing plants, five application-engineering centers and nine customer service centers around the world.

The company reported $2.39 billion of revenue in 2013, a year-on-year increase of 10 percent, according to its annual financial report.

The achievement should be attributed to the work that Laurent Bresson, Nexteer's French-born president and global chief operating officer, and his multinational team have done, Zhao said.