Solero Announces Expansion
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The Water Valley High School band performed at the opening of the year-end celebration at Solero Technologies. The crowd included hundreds of employees and corporate officials from Atar Capital, the owner of the plant. Cyrus Nikou (seated, left) is the founder and managing partner of Atar Capital.
WATER VALLEY – Solero Technologies announced an upcoming expansion at the Water Valley plant that will add 14 new production lines for manufacturing six new product families. The news broke during a year-end celebration as hundreds of employees gathered outside in a tent alongside corporate officials from Atar Capital, the owner of the plant. The celebration started with a brief performance by the Water Valley High School band.
Solero CEO Dr. Donald James reported the expansion will add an estimated 75 to 85 production jobs and five-plus salaried jobs with a projected annual revenue increase of $30 million at the Water Valley plant.
Tuesday’s announcement comes as the company has expanded their global footprint in 2024 with the acquisition of Kendrion’s U.S. and European automotive business. The deal was finalized in October as Solero acquired three plants in Germany, one in Romania, one in the Czech Republic and one in North Carolina from the Michigan-based company.
Solero is owned by Atar Capital. Cyrus Nikou, founder of Atar Capital, also spoke at Solero’s Year-End Celebration Tuesday morning.
James reported that the acquisition will help propel Solero to become a top global supplier of control systems in automotive and agricultural applications ranging from transmission and e-drive functions to active suspension, thermal management in electric vehicles, sensor cleaning and mobile hydraulics.
James also told the crowd that the expansion in Water Valley comes as the plant acquired in Shelby, N.C. will be closed.
“It is my style as CEO to be very transparent with employees so there are no rumors in the hallway about what is going on with our company,” James said. “After careful consideration, we had a facility that we acquired in Shelby, N.C. We decided to restructure that facility and bring that in-house to Water Valley. I love Water Valley because it is vertically integrated. We have engineering that is close to production and also have cross-functional support roles in the plant which makes it very conducive to growth. We want to make sure to stay competitive in the United States and we want to look at the expansion of this footprint in Water Valley in playing a part of that.”
Dr. Donald James, CEO of Solero Technologies announced continued investment in the Water Valley plant that will lead to the creation of an estimated 85 new jobs
Solero Technologies was launched in 2022 after Atar Capital acquired BorgWarner’s North American Controls Business including the Water Valley manufacturing site and related sales and engineering operations in Detroit. The company was rebranded as Solero Technologies and has experienced strong growth during the last two years with a current work force of 1,400 employees globally.
“When I took over as CEO, this company was about $140 million in revenue. I am happy to say that in the next three years we will be at half-a-billion and we want to drive forward to our vision to be a one billion-plus organization globally,” James added.
The year-end celebration also included a $5,000 donation from Solero to Compassion Food Ministries and a $1,000 check was presented to the Water Valley High School band. Solero also partnered with Make A Wish Mississippi to make an Amory teenager’s dream of building his own computer come true. Ethan Dodd, who is impacted by Limb Girdle Dystrophy, was gifted components to build his own customer computer.
Cyrus Nikou, the founder and managing partner of Atar Capital was the final speaker at the event.
Nikou told employees that their success is a big factor in the growth of the company.
