A decade ago, U.S. auto supplier Delphi Automotive employed 47,000 people in its home market, and its revenue — nearly $30 billion — topped the global car parts industry, but its U.S. workforce has now shrunk to 5,000, aided by the shedding of 42 of the 47 factories it once ran here, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Spun off from General Motors Co. in the late 1990s, Delphi once sold everything from steering wheels to brake pads. Since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009, the company has slimmed down to concentrate on supplying systems to improve fuel economy, auto safety and self-driving technologies. That focus will get even slimmer as Delphi has agreed to sell its lower margin automotive heating and cooling business to German competitor Mahle GmbH for about $727 million, a move that caps several years of refashioning the old-line U.S. parts maker to a more narrowly focused technology company. Delphi also reached a separate deal to sell its stake in Shanghai Delphi Automotive Air-Conditioning System Co. to Mahle.
