By Tobias Buck in Brussels and Richard Milne in Munich
Thursday, January 25, 2007
 
Siemens, Europe's largest engineering group, is to strengthen its core automation division by paying $3.5bn to buy private equity-owned UGS as it seeks to show it has not been paralysed by bribery allegations.

Details of the plan emerged as the German conglomerate suffered a fresh blow yesterday when the European Commission ordered it to pay a record �97m ($522m) fine for its “leadership role” in a price-fixing cartel.

Last night the company was also considering whether to float its VDO car-parts division, which has annual sales of about �0bn, according to people close to the situation.

 http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story_english.jsp?id=001009182