Following months of negotiations, private equity investor Apollo Management (New York / USA) has paid USD 975m in cash to take over the Plastics and Adhesives division (Minneapolis, Minnesota / USA; www.tycoplastics.com) of US conglomerate Tyco International (www.tyco.com). The division with 7,100 employees at 43 production sites had sales of around USD 1.7 bn in 2005 and is one of the leading US producers of plastic film. The division also has subsidiaries in Belgium, Korea and India. The selling price is well below the USD 1.7 bn Tyco had hoped for and considerably below the USD 3 bn it had expected from an auction cancelled three years ago due to slack interest.