Siemens Sells Water Technologies Unit for EUR640 Million to AEA

    By Nicky Redl 
 

FRANKFURT--Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG (SI) confirmed Wednesday that it has agreed to sell part of its water technologies unit for 640 million euros ($865 million) to New York private equity firm AEA Investors LP.

Siemens Water Technologies Business unit, part of Siemens overall water operations, offers solutions for municipal and industrial water purification and wastewater treatment and service activities. The company said it will now focus on "its water-related activities on automation and drive solutions for the operation of water and sewage treatment plants and seawater desalination plants."

It is one of four businesses which the industrial conglomerate put up for sale last year, in a push to streamline its operations and boost earnings.

The company spun off its Osram lighting unit, now Osram Licht AG (OSR.XE), to shareholders earlier this year and unsuccessfully tried selling its Solel Solar Systems unit, for which it couldn't find a buyer.

Siemens said in September that apart from any acquisitions or asset sales, it would cut 15,000 jobs, or about 4% of its global workforce, by the time its fiscal year ends next September.

Chief Executive Joe Kaeser is under pressure to meet the company's ambitious profit targets, after Siemens dismissed his predecessor Peter Loescher in July due to a string of profit warnings.

Siemens entered the water treatment market in 2004, when it acquired USFilter Corporation from Veolia Environnement S.A. (VIE.FR) for $993 million--a deal that positioned Siemens as the market leader in the water and wastewater treatment business in North America.

(Friedrich Geiger contributed to this story.)

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