Montreal, Canada, May 2, 2007 --- ABB signed an agreement with ATC Panels to manage maintenance operations at ATC's Pembroke, Ontario, Canada plant. The ABB Full Service agreement is expected to be worth more than $15 million US over a five-year period, and is the third agreement of its type for ABB in the North American forestry industry. The agreement complements more than 125 ABB Full Service relationships with customers in global process industries and discrete manufacturing. "ABB Full Service turns maintenance departments into profit centers," said Magnus Pousette, head of ABB Reliability Service North America.
"By bringing proven best practices to the full spectrum of plant maintenance activities, we add new value to our customers' bottom line while they focus on their core business."" We're tightly focused on improving profitability and increasing competitiveness," said Jose Kofman, President and CEO, ATC Panels Inc. "This agreement is a key component to making that happen. By entrusting plant maintenance operations to an established partner such as ABB, we can better focus on our core competence of manufacturing and marketing high-quality panels."
Under the terms of the agreement, ABB will assume some 32 maintenance employees and responsibility for all maintenance-related activities and equipment at the plant, and will manage the operations to contractually-agreed targets for plant performance. ABB Full Service agreements typically improve productivity and equipment availability while reducing maintenance costs for customers by up to 20 percent.ATC Panels is an industry leading supplier of composite panels and value-added products and is one of the fastest growing wood panel companies in North America. The company is owned by Aconcagua Holdings, which was formed in May 2004 by several Chilean investors who, until 2002, controlled MASISA, the largest wood-panels manufacturer in Latin America.
With five acquisitions in the past two and a half years and a recent significant minority investment by New York-based investment firm Palladium Equity Partners LLC, the company is aggressively growing. ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 109,000 people. In Canada, employs over 1,800 people in about 25 facilities from coast to coast.