The Georg Fischer machine and equipment company is to acquire a German company in a bid to strengthen its position in plastics processing.

Announcing the move on Friday, the company said it was joining with an investors' group to buy the German group, Krupp Werner and Pfleiderer, from Thyssen Krupp.

It intends to combine it with the two Georg Fischer companies, Waeschle and Buss, to form a new joint group.

A statement from Georg Fischer's Schaffhausen headquarters said the merger would create a leading supplier of systems and components for plastics processing.

No financial details of the transaction have been announced.

Georg Fischer will hold 50.1 per cent of the new group. West Private Equity, a London-based private equity fund, sponsored by German-based Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, together with WestLB, will hold 49.9 per cent.

The statement said that Georg Fischer would aim to spin-off the new group within three to five years, for instance by floating the group on the stock market.

The new group will be formed as of October 1, subject to approval by anti-trust authorities.

It will have more than 2,000 employees. The most important production plants are in Germany, Switzerland, the United States and India.

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