By Felicity Ussher, 13 April 1999 17:59
NEWS One of Europe's biggest manufacturers, Kvaerner, is to shut down its shipbuilding operations and focus instead on technology. President and CEO, Kjell Almskog, today said he would sell off every loss-making division in an attempt to get into profit - move that will see the slashing of up 25,000 jobs. Kvaerner's shipbuilding business faces the biggest cut backs, because it has no links with the rest of the group. All remaining divisions - oil and gas, engineering and contracts, and construction - will boost their technology-intensive processes. Almskog told Silicon.com: "Kvaerner is one of five companies with the key technology to produce oil and gas on the sea bed without a platform. This is a niche market that we will exploit. Likewise, we will scale down our focus on less technology-intensive processes, such as concrete and steel production. "In addition, we will acquire and develop more technology patents for our construction and engineering divisions," he said. Almskog claimed technological processes required less capital and are the best route to specialisation.
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