acquisition Sud Découpage in France

Aalberts largest player in French market for precision stamping products

Aalberts Industries N.V., a company with activities spanning the fields of Industrial Services and Flow Control, has reached agreement with the shareholders of the French group Sud Découpage on the acquisition of 100% of the shares. The transaction will make Aalberts Industries the largest supplier of precision stamping products in the French market. The acquisition will also give Aalberts Industries a dominant position in the European arena.

Sud Découpage, with its principal site at Antibes in France, consists of three operating companies. Besides the principal site, the group has companies in Lyon and in the Toulouse area. The group's overall turnover totalled more than eur 10 million in 2002. Sud Découpage is active mainly in the electrical engineering and automotive industries.

The acquired activities will be made part of Metalis, one of the French subsidiaries of Aalberts Industries, and the two companies will operate jointly in the market. The Metalis group’s activities in Lyon in particular will be enlarged. With the addition of the acquired activities, the Metalis group will significantly strengthen its position among its major international customers and can be even more closely involved in developing as well as producing new parts. Bringing together a number of business activities will allow the new combination to cut costs in the short term.

The acquisition forms part of the strategy of Aalberts Industries to add selected high-quality technologies to its activities in the industrial components field in order to form "technology clusters". Through this acquisition, Aalberts Industries will reinforce its presence in the French industrial market.

Aalberts Industries will finance the acquisition from its own financial resources and it will contribute directly to growth of profit.