Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., the maker of New York City subway trains, is seeking to buy a train maintenance company in the U.S. to help increase its services lineup and boost profit margins.
"The costs for maintenance are largely fixed," Yoshinori Kanehana, president of the company, said in an interview Tuesday. "By bringing that in-house, we can cut costs and increase profit."
Kawasaki Heavy, which gets a quarter of its revenue from the U.S., its biggest market outside Japan, is considering spending "several billion yen" to acquire a U.S. company, he said. The Kobe-based company is competing with other Asian train makers such as Hitachi Ltd. and CRRC Corp. in North America, as well as Bombardier Inc.