INTERVIEW: Converteam To Mull Ownership Options Next Year-CEO

26th Jul 2010 06:30

This story was originally published Friday. By Adam Mitchell Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES PARIS (Dow Jones)--The chief executive of closely-held French power conversion engineering company Converteam will look again at the company's ownership structure next year, with a view to it changing as early as 2012, he told Dow Jones Newswires Friday. Converteam, which has grown from a unit divested by the power engineering and train company Alstom SA (ALO.FR) in 2005, is owned, a third each, by Barclays Private Equity France, fellow private equity outfit LBO France and the management and employees of Converteam. While there's no strong reason from an industrial point of view to rejig ownership, Chief Executive Pierre Bastid said in an interview, private equity firms' business model typically involves investing for a limited time. "Their profession is to invest and make capital gains," he said. "In 2011, I will begin to think about what is the best option," Bastid said. "For me, it's 2012 or after." There are three options, Bastid said: being bought by another industrial company, an initial public offering, or a new private-equity arrangement. Converteam is best off keeping its current setup for now, he said, as it rebounds from the swingeing effects of the economic crisis. After a 40% drop in orders in 2009, it will take this year and the next to bounce back, he said. "It's only in 2012 that we get back on the trend," he added. -Adam Mitchell, Dow Jones Newswires, +33 1 40171756; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 26, 2010 01:30 ET (05:30 GMT)