Atomic, one of the world's leading manufacturers of winter sports equipment, announces that it is transferring its ski boot development and part of its production to its site in Altenmarkt, Austria. The existing production facility in Köflach Austria has been sold to Lear Corporation Austria GmbH. Atomic is a subsidiary of Amer Group Plc.
The value of the sale to Lear is not being disclosed. The agreement will have no material impact on Amer Group's results.
"Ski boot development and production of ski boot shells will be transferred to Altenmarkt. This will enable us to increase the efficiency of both our production and our research and development activities. In the future we can take further advantage of the new R&D centre in Altenmarkt when developing new boots for winter sports," says Pekka Paalanne, Senior Vice President and CFO of Amer Group.
"We believe it is very important that research, development and production planning work together. The more efficient our product development process, the quicker we can react to market trends," the President of Atomic, Michael Schineis commented. Ski boot assembly will be outsourced.
In 2001, Atomic's (www.atomicsnow.com) market share of the global alpine ski market was 18 per cent.