Businessweek

Exide Technologies manufactures and supplies lead-acid batteries for transportation and industrial applications. The company has operations in the Americas, Europe, and Rest of World (ROW). Segments The company operates in four segments: Transportation Americas, Transportation Europe and ROW, Industrial Energy Americas, and Industrial Energy Europe and ROW. Transportation The company’s transportation batteries include starting lighting and ignition (SLI) batteries for cars, trucks, off-road vehicles, agricultural and construction vehicles, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, marine, and other applications, including Micro-hybrids. Its principal batteries sold in the transportation market are represented by the following brands: Centra, DETA, Exide, Exide Extreme, Exide NASCAR Select, Orbital, Fulmen, and Tudor, as well as other brands under various private labels Transportation Americas: In the Americas, the company sells aftermarket transportation products through various distribution channels, including mass merchandisers, auto parts outlets, wholesale distributors, and battery specialists. The company sells its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) transportation replacement products principally through dealer networks. Its Americas operations include a network of 78 branches which sell and distribute batteries and other products to the company’s distributor channel customers, battery specialists, national account customers, retail stores, and OEM dealers. Transportation Europe and ROW: In Europe and ROW, the company sells OEM batteries to the light vehicle, light commercial vehicle and commercial vehicle industries. The company supplies most of its OEM batteries directly to the assembly plants of its customers. The company also supplies lead-acid batteries for microhybrid vehicles equipped with CO2- reducing technologies, such as Start & Stop vehicles with and without regenerative braking systems. The company sells Europe and ROW aftermarket batteries primarily through automotive parts and battery wholesalers, mass-merchandisers, auto centers, service installers, and oil companies. Industrial Energy The company’s Industrial Energy segment supplies both motive power and network power applications. Motive power batteries are used in the material handling industry for electric forklift trucks, and in other industries, including floor cleaning machinery, powered wheelchairs, railroad locomotives, mining, and the electric road vehicles market. The battery technologies for the motive power markets include flooded flat plate products, tubular plate products, absorbed glass mat (AGM) products, and gel electrolyte products. The company also offers a range of battery chargers and related equipment for the operation and maintenance of battery-powered vehicles. Network power batteries are used to provide back-up power for use with telecommunications systems, computer installations or data centers, hospitals, air traffic control, security systems, utilities, railway and military applications. Telecommunications applications include central and local switching systems, satellite stations, wireless base stations and mobile switches, optical fiber repeating boxes, cable TV transmission boxes, and radio transmission stations. The company’s network power battery brands, Absolyte and Sonnenschein, offer customers the choice of AGM or gel electrolyte valve regulated battery technologies. Industrial Energy Americas: In the Americas, the company distributes motive power products and services through sales and service locations owned by the company that are augmented by a network of independent manufacturers’ representatives. The company serves a wide range of customers including OEM suppliers of lift trucks, large industrial companies, retail distributors, warehousing companies, and manufacturers. It distributes network power products and services through sales and service locations owned by the company augmented by a network of independent manufacturers’ representatives. Industrial Energy Europe and ROW: The company distributes motive power products and services in Europe through in-house sales and service