Gambro and Teijin have agreed to end sales joint venture
Gambro and Teijin have agreed to end sales joint venture Stockholm, Sweden - Gambro AB (Stockholm Stock Exchange: GAMBaST, GAMBbST), a leading international medical technology and healthcare company, today announced that it has agreed with Teijin Ltd. to end their sales joint venture. As a part of Gambro's restructuring program Gambro Renal Care Products is consolidating and merging its operations in order to save costs, improve efficiency, get closer to the end customer and to increase control over sales resources. Both Gambro and Teijin have supplied products to the joint venture Gambro Teijin Medical which has been consolidated by Gambro. In the future both companies will continue to be active in supplying the Japanese market but through a more direct and simpler structure. The joint venture will be dissolved end of December this year. For Gambro the consolidated sales will be reduced by approximately SEK 200 M. The profit impact will be insignificant. Since mid 1999 Gambro in Japan has installed new management, merged its activities and moved to new joint facilities for administration, marketing, technical services and warehousing with significant improvement in efficiency in terms of economics of scale. These steps reinforce Gambro's commitment to the Japanese market and its customers in terms of more direct and active marketing and a stronger customer support. For further information please contact: Bengt Modéer, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, tel. +46-8-613 65 00 Anna Augustson, European Investor Relations Manager, tel. +46-8-613 65 35, +46-70-513 65 34 Gambro is a global medical technology and healthcare company with leading positions in renal care - services and products - and blood component technology (BCT). Gambro is one of the leading providers of kidney dialysis services in the world. Gambro treats about 42,000 patients in 565 clinics worldwide. Renal care products comprise dialyzers, dialysis machines, blood lines and dialysis fluid. BCT includes products for the separation and handling of blood components. The group, with revenue of approximately SEK 18 billion (USD 2.2 billion), has approximately 17,000 employees in some 40 countries. ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/09/21/19990921BIT00080/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/09/21/19990921BIT00080/bit0002.pdf