Tripmaster Corp. announced today the acquisition of a majority shareholding in Tripmaster by Control Instruments Group Limited of South Africa. Tripmaster will continue selling and supporting its products in North America from its US headquarters in Arlington, TX. Richard M. Geib, former majority owner and CEO, will also continue as president & CEO and as a minority investor. According to Tripmaster, the two companies will have a combined installed user base of 250,000 onboard computers and telematics units in over 40 countries.
Founded in 1946 and headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Control Instruments is a supplier of automotive electronics products to original equipment manufacturers, (such as Daimler Chrysler, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors worldwide), a major distributor of automotive aftermarket products, as well as a developer and manufacturer of fleet management products, software and services to fleets worldwide. The company designs, manufactures and owns the Intellectual Property (“IP”) for the Fleet Manager (“FM”) range of onboard computers (“OBCs”) that have been sold worldwide under the Siemens VDO FM brand for nearly ten years.
Tripmaster onboard computer products were originally developed by Rockwell International (later ArvinMeritor). Affiliated with Tripmaster since 1983 as a reseller, Richard Geib and a group of investors bought the Tripmaster assets from Meritor Automotive in 1999. Geib subsequently acquired 100% ownership in 2004.
