By Liz White, UT staffMunich, Germany-mpm, the holding group for Krauss-Maffei Kunststofftechnik GmbH, has sold its French injection moulding subsidiary Billion to the company's management. Billion's managing director, Korbinian Kiesl, has taken control of the company. mpm supplied no information on the amount paid for Billion. The sale takes effect retroactively from 1 Oct 2005.mpm's divestment of Billion is in line with the strategy the group revealed several months ago, when it said it would sell subsidiaries not achieving a certain level of sales. In future, mpm will be concentrating on its four brands-Krauss-Maffei, Demag Plastics Group, Netstal and Berstorff," said Pepyn Dinandt, mpm CEO, in a company statement. mpm group claims to be the world's largest group making plastics and rubber processing machinery, and the global market leader in injection moulding technology. Krauss Maffei's reaction technology division, which makes polyurethane processing equipment, is its smallest, but most rapidly growing, division, mpm says. The group's third division is extrusion, where it is a major supplier of both rubber and plastics equipment. In fiscal 2005, Krauss-Maffei had sales of Euro 553.4 million ($704 million), with strong sales gains in extrusion and PU processing equipment, which offset a 4 percent sales decline in injection moulding machinery. Polyurethane equipment soared more than 30 percent, to hit Euro 95 million. Extrusion sales rose 14 percent, to Euro 82 million."
