Producer
Rehau Group
Private Swiss holding company (HQ Muri bei Bern, Switzerland; German operational HQ Rehau, Bavaria; ~€4B revenue; family-owned by the Rau family); one of the world's leading PEX-a pipe manufacturers for construction, automotive, and industrial applications. Rehau pioneered PEX-a radiant floor heating systems in Europe in the 1970s-80s and expanded into North American residential radiant and plumbing markets. Rehau's US manufacturing operations include a facility at Leamington, Ontario Canada (serving North America) and operations tied to its global European production base. Rehau's PEX-a tubing competes directly with Uponor in the premium North American PEX market; Rehau is the second-largest PEX-a manufacturer in North America with approximately 15-20% US PEX market share. Rehau is also a major supplier of PEX for snow and ice melt systems in northern US and Canadian markets.
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PEX Pipe & Radiant Systems
40%Automotive Polymer Systems
30%Window & Door Profiles
20%Industrial Applications
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Did you know2023
Rehau Group makes PEX-a tubing for radiant floor heating in North American and European homes (residential construction supply chain) AND polymer window seal profiles and bumper systems for BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen (automotive manufacturing supply chain). The same Bavarian family polymer company that supplies the flexible tubing under the floors of new homes in Minnesota also supplies the black window frame seals on German luxury cars. The polyethylene chemistry expertise developed for high-temperature-resistant PEX-a pipes transfers to automotive polymer systems that must withstand similar temperature cycling and UV exposure. Rehau's dual position in the construction materials and automotive components supply chains means its polymer processing capacity and raw material supply contracts are shared across two industries with very different business cycles: residential construction booms and automotive production cycles do not necessarily correlate, giving Rehau natural business cycle diversification that pure-play plumbing pipe or automotive trim manufacturers lack.
Rehau Group ↗Origin2023
Rehau was founded in 1948 in Rehau, a small Bavarian town near the Czech border in Upper Franconia, by Wilhelm Rau — in the immediate postwar occupation period when German industry was rebuilding. The company name is literally the founding city. Rehau started making technical plastic products as postwar Germany transitioned from scarce material reconstruction to the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) growth era. The company developed PVC profiles for windows and doors in the 1950s-60s as Germany rebuilt its bombed-out cities, then expanded into radiant floor heating (PEX systems) in the 1970s as energy efficiency became a priority after the 1973 oil crisis. Rehau pioneered PEX-a (peroxide crosslinking, Engel method) radiant heating systems in Europe — the same technology Uponor/Wirsbo was pioneering in Sweden — becoming the German market standard. The company remains privately owned by the Rau family and is headquartered in Muri bei Bern, Switzerland (like many large German family businesses, Swiss headquarters for tax structure). Rehau grew from a small Bavarian technical plastics company into a €4B global enterprise that supplies PEX pipe for North American plumbing AND window seal profiles for BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Rehau Group ↗