Thyssenkrupp Plays Corporate Jenga with Its Ring-Making Business

Thyssenkrupp, the big German industrial company, is thinking about selling off a chunk of one of its businesses - specifically about 30% of its Rothe Erde bearings division, which could be worth around €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion). The company has brought in some advisers to see who might be interested in buying, but it's still pretty early days and there's no guarantee anything will actually happen. When Bloomberg asked them about it, Thyssenkrupp basically gave the standard corporate response: they're always looking at different opportunities and keeping their options open.

This potential sale is really just part of a bigger shake-up that Thyssenkrupp has been doing lately, where they're trying to get rid of some of their older, less profitable businesses so they can focus on the fancy engineering and tech stuff that makes them more money. They've already been busy with this strategy. Last year, they spun off their submarine business called TKMS and they're working on doing something similar with their metals trading operations. They're even in talks to sell their huge steel business to an Indian company called Jindal Steel.

The Rothe Erde unit they're looking to partially sell is based in Dortmund and makes specialized bearings and big metal rings that go into wind turbines, construction equipment and other heavy machinery - it's actually a pretty solid business with about 6,000 employees. According to their own reports, Rothe Erde has been doing well and contributing steadily to the company's results in the 2024/2025 fiscal year. All this restructuring talk is happening while Thyssenkrupp's stock has been absolutely crushing it - up more than 230% in just the past year, which has pushed their total market value up to about €6.9 billion. That certainly has a nice to ring to it!

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