The sale will include a United States facility in Towanda, PA and Sylvania Tungsten s.r.o., a subsidiary of OSRAM's Bruntal operation in the Czech Republic. GTP has more than 1000 employees, sales accounted for approximately 280 Mio. EUR in Fiscal Year 2007. The sale price was not disclosed.
"The Global Tungsten and Powders business unit has established itself as a world-class operation, driven by highly committed teams in the United States and Czech Republic. However, its business has diversified well beyond the lighting products that are OSRAM's strategic focus," Martin Goetzeler, CEO of OSRAM said. In joining Plansee, the GTP division would become part of a leading supplier of powder metallurgical products and components . "Our remaining prematerial activities, such as glass and coil production at other locations, will remain a strategically important part of OSRAM's business," Goetzeler added. As a result, OSRAM's resources will be focused on its core lighting business.
The sale of GTP follows the reorganization of the OSRAM division Precision Material & Components last year, when Global Tungsten and Powders (GTP) activities were separated as a business unit. In addition to prematerials for lighting products (e.g. tungsten for lamp wires) GTP mainly produces prematerials for other industries, such as tungsten carbide for machine tools, energy and aerospace.-SIEMENS
