STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 23, 2025--
HARMAN International, a global leader in automotive technology and lifestyle audio, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) business of ZF Group, comprising leading automotive compute solutions, smart cameras, radars and ADAS software functions. The transaction is valued at €1.5 billion.
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A Strategic Step toward an Integrated, Centralized Vehicle Architecture
HARMAN’s “Consumer Experiences. Automotive Grade.” strategy focuses on bringing the speed, intelligence, and intuitive experiences consumers expect from leading technology brands into vehicles, while also meeting the highest standards for automotive safety, reliability, and long-term platform support. As automakers accelerate toward software-defined vehicles (SDV), this approach enables experiences that seamlessly connect safety and assisted driving functions with comfort, connectivity, and in-vehicle intelligence. With this acquisition, HARMAN has secured strategic inroads in the ADAS and central compute platforms markets, reinforcing a foundation that anchors and advances its role in the fast-growing SDV market.
By integrating ZF’s ADAS capabilities with HARMAN's flagship Digital Cockpit offerings within a centralized compute design, the acquisition bolsters HARMAN’s roadmap for next-generation vehicle architectures. The combination creates a foundation for future central compute solutions that bring assisted and automated driving solutions, safety and user experiences on a shared platform. This approach streamlines system design, reduces integration complexity, and supports more efficient innovation cycles, allowing HARMAN to enable OEMs to scale differentiated, context-aware vehicle experiences.
“The industry is at an inflection point where safety, intelligence, and in-cabin experience must come together through a unified computing architecture,” said Christian Sobottka, Chief Executive Officer and President, Automotive Division, HARMAN. “With this agreement, we take a strategic step to expand our portfolio with complementary ADAS capabilities that unlock a new class of cross-domain experiences ranging from perception-informed audio cues to more personalized, situation-aware driving. Combined with HARMAN’s long-standing automotive expertise and supported by Samsung’s broader technology leadership, this positions us to help OEMs design the next generation of intelligent, empathetic, and connected vehicles.”
“With HARMAN, we have found the ideal partner to fully unlock the growth and innovation potential of our ADAS business,” said Mathias Miedreich, CEO of ZF Group. “At the same time, this deal makes an important contribution to reducing our company’s debt and allows us to focus our resources on the core technologies in which ZF is a global leader.”
“Samsung has a successful record of strategic acquisitions that accelerate innovation and expand what’s possible for our customers,” said Young Sohn, Chairman of the Board of Directors, HARMAN and Senior Advisor, Samsung Electronics. “Since acquiring HARMAN in 2017, the company has scaled its automotive and audio business from $7 billion to more than $11 billion today. Adding ZF’s ADAS capabilities builds on that momentum. HARMAN will further expand its technology foundation to deliver safer, more intelligent, and more intuitive in-vehicle experiences. This acquisition reinforces HARMAN’s leadership in the industry’s transformation and underscores Samsung’s long term commitment to the future of mobility.”
“This transaction marks a major milestone in the execution of HARMAN’s long-term strategy and further strengthens our portfolio,” said Carolin Reichert, Chief Strategy Officer of HARMAN. “Throughout the process, we worked in a very constructive collaboration with ZF and demonstrated our ability to successfully execute a highly complex carve-out.”
As part of the agreement, approximately 3,750 ZF employees across Europe, the Americas and Asia are expected to transition to HARMAN upon closing of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to receiving necessary regulatory approvals.
Upon closing, HARMAN will integrate ZF’s ADAS capabilities into its centralized compute and digital cockpit roadmap, enabling OEMs to deploy more scalable, safety-integrated vehicle architectures. The companies will maintain strong support for existing programs while aligning engineering, ADAS and compute teams to accelerate innovation for next-generation platforms.
About HARMAN
HARMAN is a global leader in Lifestyle Audio and Automotive technology. We create intelligent experiences that enrich people’s lives on the road, in their homes, on the stage, and everywhere in between. Our iconic audio brands — including JBL®, Harman Kardon®, AKG®, Bowers & Wilkins®, Denon®, and Marantz® — bring premium sound to consumers and audio/visual professionals worldwide. More than 50 million vehicles globally rely on HARMAN’s technologies to deliver safer, smarter, and more intuitive in-cabin experiences. A wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., HARMAN has approximately 26,000 employees around the world.
About ZF
ZF is a global technology company supplying advanced mobility products and systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology. Its comprehensive product range is primarily aimed at vehicle manufacturers, mobility providers and start-up companies in the fields of transportation and mobility. ZF electrifies a wide range of vehicle types. With its products, the company contributes to reducing emissions, protecting the climate as well as enhancing safe mobility. Alongside the automotive sector – passenger cars and commercial vehicles – ZF also serves market segments such as construction and agricultural machinery, wind power, marine propulsion, rail drives and test systems. With some 161,600 employees worldwide, ZF reported sales of €41.4 billion in fiscal 2024. The company operates 161 production locations in 30 countries.
Mathias Miedreich, CEO of ZF Group; Young Sohn, Chairman of the Board of Directors, HARMAN and Senior Advisor, Samsung Electronics; and Christian Sobottka, Chief Executive Officer and President, Automotive Division, HARMAN, sign a definitive agreement for HARMAN to acquire ZF’s ADAS business – strengthening HARMAN’s leadership in software-defined vehicles and advancing a unified safety-to-experience platform for automakers worldwide.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he will soon sign an order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees who have gone without paychecks during the record-long partial government shutdown that has reached 48 days.
He announced the unilateral move in a social media post, blaming Democrats for the impasse while thanking Republican leaders for their work this week in trying to end the standoff.
The Republican president used a similar maneuver to resume pay for the Transportation Security Administration after many employees had called out from work, resulting in long delays at airport security lines for travelers. Trump's latest intervention is expected to apply to other non-law enforcement employees at the department, including many employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard and the agency responsible for coordinating federal cybersecurity efforts.
Trump said their families “have suffered far too long.”
“Nevertheless, help is on the way for our Brave and Patriotic Public Servants who have continued to work hard, and do their part to protect and defend our Country,” Trump said.
The DHS funding lapse is likely to stretch into next week as the House is contemplating passing a Senate plan it had previously rejected to fund the bulk of the agency, but not its immigration enforcement operations.
There was no legislative resolution Thursday after both chambers met for just a few minutes in pro forma sessions. Nonetheless, the Republican leadership and Trump have coalesced around a plan to fully fund DHS as part of a two-step process. The agreement puts the congressional leaders on the same page for ending the impasse after they had pursued separate paths that resulted in Congress leaving Washington last week for its spring recess without a fix.
During the brief sessions, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., put aside the House plan to fund the entire department for 60 days. Then the House met briefly without taking up the bipartisan Senate plan that had been worked out with Democrats, though Thune is looking toward eventual passage.
“I don’t know the particulars around what the House will do with it,” Thune told reporters. “My assumption is, at some point, hopefully, they’ll move it.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Thune, announced Wednesday that they would return to the Senate measure, which funds most of DHS with the exception of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol. Republicans will try later to fund those agencies through party-line spending legislation that could take months to finish.
Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the strategy could potentially still face opposition from the GOP’s own ranks even though Trump has given his support.
Johnson’s embrace of the two-track plan marks a sharp reversal from less than a week ago, when he derided it as a “joke” and said he was “quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”
He now appears to be on board. But securing support from his own conference could prove more difficult after a sizable group of House Republicans blasted the Senate-passed bill last week.
House Republicans were expected to hold a conference call later Thursday to discuss the next steps.
Thune pointed to a “number of conversations” when he was asked how the Republican leadership and Trump aligned to move ahead after their apparent divisions a week earlier.
“The thing that some people want to do, we can’t do,” said Thune. “And so you have to figure out what’s in the realm of the possible. And you have to just continue to define reality for people.”
Democrats in both chambers were aligned last week with the Senate's plan, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York blamed House Republicans on Thursday for taking no action on it during the brief morning session.
“The deep division and dysfunction among House Republicans is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers who are missing another paycheck,” Schumer said.
Johnson will look to persuade the most conservative lawmakers within his conference to go along with the two-step approach agreed upon with the president, and Trump's latest social media post could help. The president thanked Thune and Johnson for their work, and sought to project Republican unity.
“Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers,” Trump wrote.
Many in the GOP conference have taken the stand that ICE and the Border Patrol needed to be included as part of any funding agreement.
“Let’s make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., posted on X. “If that’s the vote, I’m a NO.”
Meanwhile, the budget package that Trump wants prepared for later this year is expected to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of Trump’s term, as a way to try to ensure those agencies are no longer at risk from Democrats objecting to his immigration enforcement agenda. Trump said he wants that legislation on his desk by June 1.
Thune acknowledged the potential hurdles to that route, such as efforts to expand the scope of the bill. He said the goal is to keep it “as narrow and focused as possible” to speed passage.
“We need to kind of move with haste,” he said. “It’s probably not a likely magnet for all these other issues.”
The vast majority of DHS employees have reported to work during the shutdown, but many thousands have gone without pay. As more Transportation Security Administration agents called out from work, there was increasing frustration for air travelers confronted by long waits at some airport security lines. Those bottlenecks appeared to be clearing this week as agents began receiving backpay after Trump signed an executive order.
About 10,000 FEMA workers are being paid because their wages come out of the non-lapsing Disaster Relief Fund. At least 4,000 FEMA employees are furloughed or currently working without pay right.
AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters outside the chamber after passing a measure by unanimous consent that would fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, if the House agrees, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., gestures as he speaks to reporters outside the chamber after passing a a measure by unanimous consent that would fund most of the Department of Homeland Security if the House agrees, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference after a policy luncheon on Capitol Hill,Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference after a policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Friday, March 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
