Columbus McKinnon has agreed the sale of its Positech division, which manufactures industrial manipulators and positioning products, to a management group led by Peter Hong, current president of Positech, for $2m in cash.
CM said that it would use the cash to help reduce its debts and record a pre-tax charge of $2.3m as a loss on the sale of Positech in its fiscal 2004 fourth quarter which ends on 31 March 2004.
Explaining why CM had chosen to sell Positech, president and CEO Timothy Tevens said: “As a manufacturer of highly engineered products with specialised applications, Positech is a solutions-type business and we are focusing our energies and resources on our material handling products business which makes up over 85% of Columbus McKinnon’s sales. This divestiture is consistent with our previously announced plan to evaluate the sale of some less synergistic businesses to focus on our core products business and to generate cash for further debt reduction. We continue to evaluate the sale of additional businesses and surplus properties and will report on these sales as they occur.” Positech will remain in its current facility in Laurens, Iowa in the USA and all 64 employees will transfer to the new company, which will operate as American Handling Systems Inc.
