Industrial giant Siemens AG (IW 1000/34) said Wednesday it had reached an agreement to buy Invensys Rail from the British technology company Invensys for about 2.2 billion euros ($2.8 billion).
Siemens also announced it planned to divest its baggage handling, postal and parcel sorting activities.
"Today’s moves are important measures to focus our core activities," Roland Busch, chief executive of Siemens Infrastructure & Cities said .
"We are exiting a non-core business with limited synergy potential while strengthening a resilient and high return business by combining two organizations with similar cultures and attractive synergy potential," he added.
Invensys Rail, which has revenues of about £800 million (991 million euros), is a leading software based rail signaling and control company and will expand Siemens’ presence in the growing global rail automation market, it added.
The deal is subject to approval by Invensys shareholders and regulatory clearances, Siemens said.
Siemens said at the start of the month it planned to strengthen the core business of its four branches of activity -- energy, health, industry and infrastructure.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012
