France/August 12, 2003/ALSTOM announces that it has now completed the major part of the disposal of it medium gas turbines and industrial steam turbines businesses to Siemens AG. This was the second of the two transactions with Siemens AG announced on 28 April, by which ALSTOM sold its industrial turbines businesses for an enterprise value of €1.1billion and net cash proceeds of €950 million.

Completion of this second transaction follows receipt of formal merger clearance from merger control authorities, principally in the US and Europe.

The disposal of the small gas turbine business to Siemens AG was completed on 30 April 2003.

Certain minor parts of the business have not yet been transferred to Siemens AG pending completion of legal procedures in some jurisdictions.

Alstom Confirms 5,000 Jobs To Go In Britain: (AFP) Alstom, France's bankrupt heavy engineering group, confirmed Aug. 11 that it is to cut its 10,000-strong workforce in Britain in half, most of them through sales of subsidiaries to other companies. "Most of these workforce reductions will be job transfers, through the sale of our turbine activity to Siemens and especially through the sale of the T and D (Transmission and Distribution) division to Areva," a spokesman said.

Much of the T and D unit is located in Britain. A thousand of the job cuts will come from Alstom's train-making factory in Birmingham and form part of a plan announced in June to slash 5,000 posts across Europe, he added. "Thought is being given to focus the company not on production activities but on service," he said. The French government is preparing a 2.8-billion-euro (US$3.1 billion) bail-out of Alstom, but that is dependent on approval from the competitions directorate of the European Commission.

ALSTOM is a global leader in energy and transport infrastructure. The Company serves the energy market through its activities in the fields of power generation and power transmission and distribution, and the transport market through its activities in rail and marine. In fiscal year 2002/03, ALSTOM had annual sales in excess of €20 billion and employed around 100,000 people in over 70 countries worldwide.

Click here to view more current news articles