FLS Industries A/S has signed an agreement to sell a 108,000 sq. m property that borders up to the FLS Group headquarters in Valby, Copenhagen - situated between Gl. Køge Landevej and Vigerslev Allé (Land Register No. 472 Valby). Financially, the sale of the operating assets will have a positive non-recurring impact on EBIT for 2001 close to DKK 90m (EUR 12m). See also the FLS half-yearly financial statement issued on 28 August (Stock Exchange Message No. 13-2001).
The site is centrally located with easy access to motorway, trains, buses and a coming suburban railway station. The land has been in FLS ownership since 1898 and was originally the site of Valby Machinery Works. In 1996 the FLS Group acquired a Swiss manufacturing company, MAAG Gear, with which Valby Machinery Works' activities were integrated, and most of the production subsequently relocated to Poland. Today, MAAG Gear uses only a minor part of the 49,000 square metre premises on the site for production purposes - and these activities are due to move out by the end of 2002. Accordingly, and due to the fact that major contracts for cement plant are increasingly being accompanied by demands for local manufacture, continued ownership of the site is no longer of strategic importance to the Group. Most of the buildings placed here are already rented to non-FLS tenants.
FLS Industries A/S
Corporate Public Relations