ThyssenKrupp's Giddings & Lewis Buys Control of Indian Builder.

Last summer Giddings & Lewis, Inc. (Fond du Lac, Wis.) increased its stake in Kirloskar Warner Swasey Ltd. (Hubli, India), a builder of CNC lathes, and started building Fadal machining centers there. Now G&L has acquired a majority interest in the Asian company. Financial details of the transaction were not stated.

The name of the company is changed to Giddings & Lewis India, Ltd.

Operationally, the firm will be put under Stephen Peterson, a G&L group VP and general manager of its Fadal Machining Centers business (Chatsworth, Calif.). Continuing as president of the Indian firm is Sham Kirloskar.

The Hubli, India, plant had been an arm of Cross & Trecker, which held a minority interest. That passed to Giddings, now a unit of Thyssen Krupp A.G. (Dusseldorf, Germany), with its 1991 acquisition of C&T.

      In a statement, Peterson says that Giddings & Lewis India Ltd. will be a
   "growth platform" to produce lathes and vertical-spindle MCs for the
   subcontinent market.

Correction: In last issue's report on the Blue Bulletin listings, the gross sales for the parent of the parent of Thyssen Production Systems were understated. Thyssen A.G. overall had sales of $24.4-billion. Its subsidiary Thyssen Industrie, a conglomerate of 138 companies, in turn had sales of $7.7-billion. Within Thyssen Industrie, Thyssen Production Systems (the machine-tool portion that includes Giddings, Huller Hille, et al.) had 1998 sales of around $1.5-billion, as was correctly reported. That is, the portion of Thyssen that sells machine tools leads the world's builders, as stated. (For 1999, the numbers will reflect the merger of Thyssen A.G. with Krupp A.G. to form Thyssen Krupp A.G., and the gross sales numbers of the new mega-conglomerate will truly skyrocket.)

Giddings & Lewis, Inc., Fond du Lac, wis. 920-921-4100.