AM International Inc., declining to look a gift horse in the mouth, said Thursday that it accepted a ”very good deal” to sell its Bruning engineering graphics products division to a large Dutch competitor for $52.5 million.
The sale of Itasca-based Bruning to Oce-van der Grinten NV isn`t expected to result in a loss of jobs, according to spokesmen for both companies. Bruning employs 850, including 250 in the Chicago area.
The sale will help improve the cash position of Chicago-based AM International, which has been struggling with lackluster sales.
The sale will mark AM`s exit from a U.S. market segment that, though profitable, isn`t central to its operations, said Merle Banta, chairman and chief executive.
AM International`s ”core business” is manufacturing and distributing equipment for commercial and industrial printers, and not Bruning`s products for engineers and architects, said Banta.
Bruning, which does business in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, has annual sales of about $100 million. AM`s remaining businesses have revenue of $800 million.
AM will continue to do some engineering graphics business in Britain, Banta said. The sale of Bruning had not been contemplated as part of a restructuring AM began last year, he added.
Oce, he said, ”came with a very attractive offer, and we took it. . . .
”Oce is happy to get our strong distribution and service organization. I think it is unlikely that jobs will be lost.”
AM International`s restructuring seems to be bearing positive results, said Peter Azcue, an analyst for Value Line.
Growth in operating profits has been hindered, however, because most of AM`s products ”are high-ticket items, and these are the first casualties in a recession,” Azcue wrote in a report to clients.
Mary Maguire, a spokeswoman for Oce, said there are ”no plans for people to lose their jobs.
”The reason they (Oce) bought Bruning is that (Bruning has) a good infrastructure, a 60-branch office network to distribute from. Oce needed to increase their sales force,” she said.
Oce is a leading producer and supplier of materials and machines for design engineering. Sales of such products total $550 million of the company`s annual revenue of $1.2 billion for copying machines, laser printing systems, plotting supplies and photosensitive materials and graphic films.
Oce`s U.S. sales force is based in Chicago.
