Swedish industrial group Trelleborg (Trelleborg; www.trelleborg.com) is reorganising its operational structure to strengthen well-performing businesses with sizeable global reach while time bolstering weaker business segments that need improvement. The new focus will involve development and investment in organic growth and various types of bolt-on acquisitions, the group said.

Going forward, the management structure will rest on three pillars, compared to five currently, in addition to a newly created reporting segment, which will be recognised separately from the business area structure. Also operating outside the core operating framework will be a new segment incorporating underperforming business and called Businesses under Development. The latter will report to Trelleborg’s CFO, Ulf Berghult.

From 2020, Industrial Solutions will specialise in polymer-based niche applications and infrastructure projects. Sealing Solutions will focus on polymer-based sealing solutions and Wheel Systems will concentrate on tyres for off-road vehicles. Currently effective business areas Coated Systems and Offshore & Construction will be discontinued at the end of 2019, when Dario Porta, currently president of Coated Systems, will leave group management and become president of the printing blankets operations.

While Sealing Solutions will be unaffected by the reorganisation and Wheel Systems only marginally affected, Industrial Solutions will see a number of changes. In future, this business area will include some operations of the discontinued engineered coated fabrics operations of Coated Systems and certain assets of Offshore & Construction. At the same time, some current Industrial Solutions activities will be moved to Businesses under Development.

The development side track will take in the printing blankets operations of Coated Systems, the oil and gas operations of Offshore & Construction, the Swedish and Estonian operations for speciality moulded components, the Czech operations for specialty moulded components and the technical rubber products of Industrial Solutions as well as the bicycle tyre operations of Wheel Systems. With annual sales of SEK 3.9 bn (around EUR 371m), these activities displayed weak profitability over the past three months, Trelleborg said. For Q4 2019, the group’s financial statement will include an impairment charge of SEK 3.2 bn related to the operations transferred to Businesses under Development.