The fate of one of Europe's leading FM companies may rest on the outcome of a surprise bid for its parent company. Yesterday, Swiss investment company InCentive Capital launched a bid for conglomerate Sulzer worth an estimated 4.4bn Swiss francs.

Sulzer announced its intention to sell the majority of its operations in order to focus on its technology businesses, towards the end of last year (see News story). Five divisions are on the market including Sulzer Infra, which includes the Infrastructure Services Division to which FM company Sulzer Infra CBX belongs.

InCentive already holds a 15% stake in Sulzer. Speaking at a news conference, InCentive's chief executive Rene Braginsky said he wanted to continue the restructuring of Sulzer which the current management had failed to complete – indeed the offer is subject to the resignation of all Sulzer's board members. Braginsky added that there were no plans to sell individual businesses, although it is understood that the separately listed Sulzer Medica unit would be split off.

In a brief statement issued yesterday afternoon Sulzer said that it was assessing the offer and would "disclose its standpoint in due course."

Richard Byatt