Metso has agreed to divest certain parts of its industrial rubber conveyor belt manufacturing and related sales and services operations. The operations comprise 27 locations with around 340 employees currently belonging to Metso’s Mining and Construction segment. The industrial rubber conveyor belt manufacturing and sales and services locations in Finland will be divested to ContiTech Conveyor Belt Group. The industrial rubber conveyor belt sales and services locations in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and in Southern Sweden will be divested to Lutze Group. The price of the transaction will not be disclosed.
Industrial rubber conveyor belts and related services will continue to be an essential part of Metso’s offering to mining and construction industries also in the future. The planned divestment is part of Metso’s strategy to develop and simplify its current production capacity in Europe. The aim is to improve the competitiveness of the business and to further develop customer service. The sales and services operations planned to be divested serve other customer industries than mining and construction.
Completion of the planned divestment is expected to occur during Q4/2013. The planned divestment will have no material impact on Metso’s financial performance.