API Acquires Swedish Motor Manufacturer

American Precision Industries Inc. (API, Buffalo, N.Y.) purchased ELMO Industrier AB by its subsidiary API Motion Inc. The agreement to acquire ELMO, which is a subsidiary of Vatterledens Invest AB of Goteborg, Sweden, had been previously announced on Nov. 23, 1998. The acquisition closed Feb. 1 with API Motion purchasing all of the operating assets and assuming certain liabilities of ELMO.

The purchase price was Swedish krona 169,910,000 ($21.8 million) plus the assumption of approximately Swedish krona 44,200,000 ($5.7 million) of bank debt.

The business will be operated as API Elmo AB and remain located in Flen, Sweden. It designs and manufactures specialty electric motors for targeted niche markets and expands the current target markets served by API Motion. API Elmo has annual sales of about $30 million and uses a flexible flow system in its manufacturing process..

"The acquisition of Elmo opens new targeted markets for API and moves us further along the path of execution of our strategy to both consolidate a major share of the precision motion control market and to achieve broad geographic diversification. API now has roughly 50 percent of sales and manufacturing in Europe," says Kurt Wiedenhaupt, Chairman, president and CEO of API.

API, which employs over 2,000 people worldwide, is a multi-domestic manufacturing company which produces precision motion control and industrial heat transfer products.