Column: In search of the elusive green nickel premium
Just about every Western producer will tell you metal produced to higher environmental and social standards should command a premium.
Metal-cutting tools maker Sandvik has agreed to sell 70% of its drilling and completions business for 900 million crowns ($92.8 mln) in line with its strategy to focus on core operations.
The Swedish group said on Monday it would sell the part of Sandvik Drilling and Completions that makes products for the oil and gas industry to private equity firm Blue Water Energy and Nixon Energy Investments.
It said it would book a 3.9 billion crown goodwill writedown related to the divestment in the fourth quarter and aimed to finalise the deal in the first quarter of 2020.
Sandvik said last year it was evaluating options for the business, which it bought in 2014 for $740 million and was part of its mining and rock technology unit.
Sandvik, which last week appointed a new CEO, will keep the remaining 30% of Drilling and Completions which makes products for the mining industry.
The group, which has struggled historically to safeguard profitability during cyclical downturns, has in recent years sold a string of businesses it considers to be outside its core operations.
($1 = 9.6951 Swedish crowns)
(By Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Helena Soderpalm and Kirsten Dnonovan)
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