Alcan jettisons French asset (April 30, 2007)

Alcan (AL-T, AL-N) is paring down its engineered products branch by selling off its Satma subsidiary to ALMECO Spa of Italy.

The move comes after the Montreal-based company decided that Satma didn’t offer the same growth potential as its “core” products.

Christel Bories, president and chief executive of Alcan Engineered Products said in a statement that Satma “no longer fits into Engineered Products’ core business and will have better opportunities for development with a company closer to its market and technologies.”

The Satma facility is located in Goncelin, in southeastern France. It manufactures and sells capacitor foil for the electronics industry as well as anodized strip for the lighting and decoration markets.

ALMECO Spa specializes in making anodized strip for the same markets.

Satma employs 138 people and reported revenue of roughly $51 million for 2006.

The final terms of the deal weren’t immediately announced and the company said they would only be released after it has met with employee representatives. The sale is expected to close by the end of May.

Alcan has operations in bauxite mining, alumina processing, primary metal smelting, power generation, aluminum fabrication, engineered solutions as well as flexible and specialty packaging.

It operates in 61 countries and regions, has 68,000 employees, and posted revenue of US$23.6 billion in 2006.

In morning trading in Toronto on April 23, the company’s shares were down 22 to $61.40 on roughly 160,000 shares traded.