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Melrose Industries Explores Sale of Power Generation Unit Brush

Melrose Industries Explores Sale of Power Generation Unit Brush

(Bloomberg) -- Melrose Industries Plc is exploring a sale of its Brush power generation equipment unit, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Birmingham-based Melrose is working with an adviser to gauge buyer interest in the business, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. A deal could value Brush at about 100 million pounds ($131 million), one of the people said.

Melrose acquired Brush as part of its 2008 purchase of British engineering group FKI Plc. The company makes generators, motors and transformers used by power producers, industrial companies and oil explorers.

Brush is now “smaller but profitable,” and its restructuring has been substantially completed to plan, Melrose said in a September investor presentation. Brush has struggled due to economic uncertainty in some of its main markets, and demand from the gas turbine industry continues to be far below its previous peak, Melrose said in its results announcement that month.

This weakness has led Melrose to cut jobs at Brush in the past few years. A representative for Melrose declined to comment.

Brush sits within Melrose’s “Other Industrial” division, which reported 335 million pounds of adjusted revenue in the first half of last year and 31 million pounds of adjusted operating profit.

Melrose is also preparing to sell the bulk of its Nortek division, in what could become the British buyout specialist’s biggest divestment in more than four years, Bloomberg News reported this week.

To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Kirchfeld in London at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net;David Hellier in London at dhellier@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks

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