Getting rid of gas
14 May 2002
Invensys has agreed to sell its CompAir business to Alchemy Partners, the UK based private equity firm, for a nominal consideration.
Alchemy will be injecting new funds to restructure the business and Invensys will retain an 18% shareholding.
CompAir produces air and gas compression systems and has net assets of £61m. In the year ended 31 March 2002, the business generated sales of £205m and made an operating loss pre-restructuring of £12m. Restructuring costs in the period were £7m. Goodwill previously written off to reserves in respect of CompAir amounts to approximately £21m.
The disposal is subject to EU regulatory approval and is expected to complete by the end of June.
In addition to the Energy Storage and Flow Control disposals previously announced, Invensys has completed a number of other disposals since September 2001, bringing total proceeds to approximately £750m (including approximately £70m non-cash).
The most significant of the other disposals were: Australian Transmissions (£33m), Brook Crompton Industrial HP Division (£18m), Crompton Instruments (£17m), Brook Crompton Fractional HP Division (£11m), Eberle Relays (£6m) and Eurotherm Gauging (£2m).
In addition to the completed disposals, conditional contracts have been exchanged for the sale of Alemite (£23m) and BAE Automated Systems (£3m).
