TACNA acquires Tijuana plant

The Daily Transcript

Hoping to find opportunity in an area vacated by others, San Diego based TACNA International Corp. is to announce Thursday that it acquired an electronics maker operating in maquiladora-concentrated Tijuana.

TACNA, a 19-year-old shelter company providing cross border services to U.S. firms operating in Mexico, acquired the plant assets and customer contracts of Schott Corp. for an undisclosed amount. TACNA intends to operate the Schott enterprise, maintaining current employees and location, under the name TACNA Magnetics.

For a U.S. company to buy a stake in the Mexican maquiladora industry now is rare.  Since maquiladora employment topped 1.35 million jobs in 2000, sector jobs have declined 20 percent as companies moved to China or shut down. Between 2000 and 2002, twin plant production dropped 30 percent.

Yet TACNA believes timing is right. The firm has operated the Schott facility on a contract basis since 1997.

“It is our feeling that the inventories of the past have been pretty well eaten up at this time, said Rob Rosi, President of TACNA International.”We feel that they’re going to have to be replaced as we go forward and we do see positive movement on that front economically.”

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