(Reuters) — German prosthetic limb and wheelchair maker Ottobock is aiming to float on the stock exchange in 2 years, its CEO told a German magazine.
“We want to enter the stock exchange with our strongly growing healthcare business in 2017,” chief executive Hans Georg Naeder told Focus magazine.
Healthcare – by far the largest of Ottobock’s 3 businesses – has roughly 7,300 employees and generated sales of €771 million($856 million) last year, according to the company’s website. Ottobock also has a chemicals division and an IT business.
Focus magazine said the 96-year-old company would offer investors a 25% stake the healthcare business in a 1st step.
CEO Naeder is only the 3rd chief to lead the company, after Otto Bock, a prosthetist who founded the business after World War I, and Bock’s son-in-law Max Naeder.
($1 = €0.9005)
