FLSmidth to narrow focus of minerals unit
FLSmidth & Co will narrow the focus of its mineral division to six areas, including copper, and may sell operations serving the chemical and paper industries.
“We’re active in about a dozen industries and now we’re going to focus on a more select group,” Chief Executive Officer Joergen Huno Rasmussen said in an interview yesterday. “We’re choosing these six because we see very good long-term prospects for minerals and because we already have strong technology in those areas.”
Research budgets will concentrate on equipment to help process copper, coal, gold, iron ore, phosphates and platinum group metals, Rasmussen said at his Valby headquarters, near Copenhagen. Units generating about DKK3bn (US$600m) in sales from drug, food and pulp clients will be run as “cash cows,” with disposals a long-term option, he said.
Minerals will overtake cement as FLSmidth’s largest market area within five years, according to Rasmussen. The 2007 acquisition of sorting-equipment maker Groupe Laperriere & Verreault Inc. for $920 million helped revenue climb fivefold in four years. Products include grinders and conveyor pipes measuring as long as 8.2 kilometers (5.1 miles), supplied to Anglo American Plc, Rio Tinto Group and Vale SA.
Source: Bloomberg
Published under Cement News
