Sweden's Trelleborg to restructure, flags $332 million impairment in fourth-quarter

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Industrials group Trelleborg <TRELb.ST> said on Wednesday it would move to three business areas from five and make a 3.2 billion crowns (258 million pounds) writedown to its capital employed in the fourth quarter in connection with the change.

The Swedish company said it intended to propose an unchanged dividend of 4.75 crowns per share for 2019, as the measures were not seen affecting the group's dividend capacity.

Trelleborg will at also undertake a strategic review of operations with sales of about 3.9 billion crowns, which will from now be reported as "businesses under development".

"We are now putting a stronger focus on our strategically well-positioned businesses," Trelleborg CEO Peter Nilsson said in a statement.

Trelleborg's business areas will be Industrial Solutions, Sealing Solutions and Wheel Systems, while Coated Systems and Offshore & Construction will be discontinued.

Nilsson flagged that margins for the "businesses under development" needed to improve significantly in the next 1-2 years for those operations to remain in Trelleborg.

"As the improvement work is in progress, we will continuously evaluate various structural alternatives," he said.

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; Editing by Simon Johnson)