Siemens AG, Europe's largest engineering company, agreed to sell a cordless phone unit to Arques Industries AG, completing its retreat from telecommunications, on which it was founded 160 years ago.
Arques, based in Starnberg, Germany, will acquire 80.2 percent of Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices GmbH, which reported 792 million euros (US$1.23 billion) in sales last year and employs 2,100 people, Munich-based Siemens said in a statement yesterday.
The sale will take effect on Oct. 1.
REFOCUSED
The cordless unit was Siemens’ last remaining consumer products asset as chief executive officer Peter Loescher has refocused the company to emphasize development and sales of automation equipment, power networks and medical scanners.
Loescher agreed to divest the company’s call center networking business, SEN Enterprise Communications, on Tuesday. The company handed its mobile-phone division to Taiwan’s BenQ Corp (明基) in 2005.
GIGASET
Arques agreed to keep SHC’s operations in Bocholt and Munich, Germany, for the next three years as part of the deal, Siemens said.
Two-thirds of the unit’s sales are generated by gigaset cordless phones while the rest is made up of broadband and home entertainment devices.
“With this step, Siemens is rigorously continuing its strategy of focusing on the three sectors: energy, industry and healthcare,” the company said in the statement.
LONG GOODBYE
Siemens has spent three years exiting the communications business. BenQ decided to stop funding the handset division within a year of receiving it from Siemens, forcing it to declare insolvency.
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