US machinery group Milacron Inc. (Cincinnati, Ohio/ USA; www.milacron.com) will concentrate on plastics technology and the smaller field of “industrial fluids” in future. After selling its European tooling group led by Widia (www.widia.com) and Werkö (www.werkoe.de) to US-based Kennametal (www.kennametal.com) for EUR 188m at the start of May, Milacron is now selling its metal-cutting subsidiary, Valenite, to Swedish engineering group Sandvik (www.sandvik.com) for USD 175m.

Now that preliminary figures for this year´s second quarter are available, Milacron has also had to cut back its former 2002 sales projections for plastics technology by USD 30m, to between USD 570m and 600m. Earnings also will be USD 15m lower than previously projected, according to CEO Ron Brown. This is because the expected upturn in the machinery and mould-making businesses has failed to materialise in either the US or Europe. The slack period is now expected to continue until the end of the year. Over the medium and long term, however, plastics technology is seen as offering better growth prospects than metal.

During an investors conference call, Brown quashed growing speculation that Milacron might try to acquire Mannesmann Plastics Machinery AG (MPM, D-80997 Munich; www.mannesmann-plastics.com). He said it was obvious that the group was not planning major acquisitions while its restructuring process was still underway. Any acquisitions would be smaller in scale and more likely to be in standardised mould parts or service, which offer bigger margins and already account for about half of its plastics technology business.