Agfa not seeking to sell healthcare unit - CEO
MORTSEL, Belgium, Oct 1 (Reuters ) - Belgian imaging technology group Agfa-Gevaert (AGFB.BR) is not seeking to sell its healthcare unit and will concentrate instead on existing plans to improve performance, its chief executive said.
"This is not a good moment to try to do any (divestment) operation. In the next year or two years we will be focusing on executing the plans we have," Jo Cornu told a news briefing on Wednesday at the company's headquarters.
Agfa said a month ago that it planned to keep the healthcare unit together and that its board had not launched a process to sell the operation, denying media reports that it was set to start a formal sales process. Instead it said its priority was to improve operational efficiency.
Cornu said on Wednesday that Agfa was under no pressure to act and, in response to a question about whether Agfa was still interested in divesting the unit, said: "We are not taking any initiative to do it."
Agfa, which specialises in imaging systems and IT for hospitals and top-end printers for publishers and newspapers, had planned last year to split into three separately listed companies -- Agfa Graphics, Agfa Health Care and Agfa Materials.
It scrapped the plan after disappointing first-quarter results this year, saying the move was no longer viable.
The company has, however, hired investment bank Lazard to advise it on its strategic options.
Agfa has previously said that allowing a third party to take a key shareholding in a business was one option, possibly as a precursor to floating that business.
"An IPO in today's market would be suicidal. It is not a scenario on which we are working," Cornu said.
Analysts have said healthcare is the unit Agfa would most likely spin off or sell, although the company first needs to stem a fall in sales, as its digital products have so far failed to offset the decline in its traditional film and print business. (Reporting by Antonia van de Velde, writing by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Simon Jessop)
