VANTAA, FINLAND (Jan. 26, 11:45 a.m. ET) — Uponor Deutschland GmbH is selling its Hewing GmbH unit, based in Ochtrup, Germany, for 11.9 million euros ($15.6 million).
The company, part of Vantaa-based Uponor Oyj, says it is selling the OEM pipe manufacturer to Rettig Germany GmbH because of a decline in the market.
“The business environment for OEM manufacturing has weakened in Europe in recent years, and the evolution was speeded up by the difficult market conditions in the past few years,” Uponor CEO Jyri Luomakoski said in a statement. “This has severely impacted performance, with little room for improvement in the current setup.”
Hewing supplies plumbing systems' manufacturers in central Europe and generated net sales of 50 million euros ($65 million) in 2011.
Uponor says the divestment leads to an impairment write-down of 10.5 million euros ($13.8 million) for the 2011 financial year, which will impact the continuing operations and lead to a 2011 profit which is “clearly below the previous year's level.”
The deal is expected to close in March or April.
Rettig Germany is a member of Helsinki, Finland-based heating technology manufacturer Rettig Ltd.
