MoreLeica Geosystems' Surveying & Engineering Division has announced at its press conference in Singapore the establishment of its new Singapore subsidiary Leica Geosystems Technologies Pte Ltd. This new company combines its carved-out business in Leica Instruments Pte Ltd with those from its US operations in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a consequence of its previously announced restructuring plan.
Leica Instruments (S) Pte Ltd was a 50:50 joint venture company between Leica Geosystems, based in Heerbrugg Switzerland, and Leica Microsystems, based in Wetzlar Germany. On 31st December 2004, Leica Geosystems has effectively completed the sale of the 50% share of its ownership in Leica Instruments (S) Pte Ltd to its partner Leica Microsystems. With this transaction, Leica Geosystems has also completed the divestment of its Singapore parts manufacturing operations and will in the future concentrate on the final assembly of its products in the new entity announced today.
In addition to being the competence centre for development and engineering of digital and optical levelling technologies, Leica Geosystems Technologies in Singapore will be the global headquarter for levelling products, including manufacturing and assembly operations.
Leica Geosystems aims to siginificantly increase its share of the global levelling market via its new activities in Singapore. The entity is expected to expand rapidly from 70 people to a workforce of more than 130 people within the next 2 years. The majority of these new hires will be engineers reflecting Leica Geosystems' investment plans in product development and process engineering.
Source: Leica Geosystems, Jan. 13, 2005
