Control changed; the building did not
Colruyt Group said on July 14 that it transferred 70% of the self-driving pallet-truck R&D activities held in Smart Innovation to KION, retaining 30%. Colruyt expects the transaction to add approximately €20 million to its consolidated income statement in FY2026/27. The Belgian retailer said Smart Innovation will now be treated as an associate under the equity method.[1,2,3]
The announcement calls the arrangement a new R&D center within KION, but the physical KION Automation Center Antwerp is not new. KION opened the 11,800-square-meter facility in October 2024 with about 400 employees and described it then as its primary EMEA hub for automation research, testing and customized production. The July 2026 change is therefore ownership and team integration inside an existing center, not a greenfield opening.[1,5]
The financial handoff matters
Registry-derived figures compiled by Companyweb show why the control transfer is financially material. Smart Innovation's 2025 revenue fell 11% to €8.16 million from €9.19 million, while a €758,187 profit became a €1.21 million loss. Headcount increased from 60.4 to 87.2 full-time equivalents. The €20 million figure is an expected income-statement effect, not a disclosed cash price; neither company published the valuation, consideration or transaction financing.[1,4]
KION becomes Colruyt's preferred global commercialization partner and plans to prepare the system for industrial rollout across EMEA, while the Smart Innovation team continues development. Colruyt says the trucks operate in two of its distribution centers, but it disclosed no current unit count, uptime, safety data, customer orders, backlog, capacity, unit economics, rollout date or VLAIO subsidy amount. The next evidence is Colruyt's FY2026/27 transaction note and KION's first disclosed external orders, deliveries and operating results.[1,2,3,4,5]