Voest Alpine Industrieanlagenbau (VAI) recently took over the remaining 49% shares of Techint Compagnia Tecnica Internazionale from the joint-venture company VAI Pomini, making VAI the 100% owner of the company.

This step was planned in the joint-venture contract of the company founded three years ago. The selling price is kept secret.

VAI Pomini, with headquarter in Castellanza, Italy, is well situated on the plant-building sector for long rolling mills; in its segment, it is number two on the world market. The company reached a turn-over of 97 million Euro in 2003 and has 180 employees at the moment. The main markets are Far East, China and Europe. Potential markets for expansion activities will be Russia, India and Latin America.

Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau (VAI), a company of the listed VA Technologie AG, is one of the world’s leading engineering and plant-building companies for the iron, steel and aluminum industries with a multinational company structure and special focus on technology, automation and services. VAI achieved total sales of 976 millions EUR in 2003 and employs approximately 3,400 people worldwide.