Alcan jettisons French asset (April 23, 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 didnt offer the same growth potential as its more differentiated 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 electronic industry as well as anodized strip for the lighting and decoration markets.

ALMECO Spa specializes in anodized strip for the same markets.

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

The final terms of the deal werent announced and the company said they will only be known 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 revenues of US$23.6 billion in 2006.

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