GTE to Sell Sylvania Lighting Businesses for $1.1 Billion
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STAMFORD, Conn. — GTE Corp. said Thursday it will sell its Sylvania lighting businesses to a German company and an international consortium for $1.1 billion.
Osram, a Siemens company based in Munich, will purchase GTE’s North American lighting business. The consortium, Sylvania Lighting International, will acquire GTE’s international lighting business.
None of the 20,000 employees affected by the transactions will lose jobs, GTE said.
The deal, which needs approval from the European Merger Commission as well as the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The sales include all the businesses in GTE’s electrical products group except Valenite, a company that makes cutting tools, and the control devices division, which GTE expects to sell in separate transactions.
GTE said last September it would consider selling its electrical products business to focus on its telecommunications markets. GTE is the largest U.S. local telephone company and a leader in cellular and satellite communications.
The divestiture is “consistent with our focus on what had always been our largest and most profitable business--telecommunications,” GTE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Charles R. Lee said.
“As we said when we announced our intention to divest the electrical products business, our future growth, profitability and enhancement of shareholder value lie within the telecommunications industry,” Lee said.
Osram is a leading lighting-products company with strong positions in Europe and widespread operations in Latin America, Japan and the Far East. Its parent, Siemens, had sales in 1991 of $45 billion.
The Sylvania International Lighting consortium is a group of international investors advised by Citicorp Venture Capital in London, GTE said.
GTE, the fourth-largest publicly held telecommunications company in the world, last month reported first-half profits of $873 million, or 96 cents per share, compared to $591 million, or 65 cents a share, in the first six months of 1991.
