Somaschini S.p.A., headquartered in Trescore Balneario (Bergamo) Italy, announces the purchase on Nov. 30th from Schafer Gear Works Inc. all of its Minority Membership Interests of South Bend Gear LLC. With this purchase Somaschini becomes the sole owner of South Bend Gear LLC. The production unit in South Bend will act in tight cooperation with the parent company under the new name of Somaschini North America LLC and led by their new Chief Executive Officer Dr. Andrea Scanavini who was previously working as coordinator for the previous JV on behalf of the Italian shareholder. Gianfranco Somaschini, CEO of Somaschini Italy, is appointed as president of the North American company. “This decision represents a new milestone in the long history of our company” said Dr. Scanavini “and it fits in the strategy of deeper penetration in the North American market in the particular sector of medium and high volumes ground cylindrical gears with diameters between 50 and 400 mm as we are currently manufacturing at the parent company in Italy”. Somaschini S.p.A. was established in 1922 in Milan and transferred to Trescore Balneario (Bergamo) Italy, east of Milan in 1943.Somaschini is a diverse supplier of gears that are sold to a variety of markets in Europe including automotive, passenger and heavy-duty trucks, motorcycle, marine, textile machines, machine tools, robotics, railway and renewable energy. In 2007, Somaschini established Somaschini Automotive S.r.l. in a satellite facility located in Entratico (Bergamo) Italy to bring all high-volume automotive production into a dedicated plant. Today, the Somaschini Group has 250 employees and sales of 50 million Euro.