The dialysis group Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) is continuing to withdraw from South America and is even accepting losses in the process.

FMC has sold its 154 dialysis clinics in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador to its US competitor DaVita for 300 million dollars, the company announced on Tuesday in Bad Homburg. With 7100 employees, they generated sales of the equivalent of 370 million euros last year. This is the next milestone in the program to simplify the investment portfolio, explained FMC. CEO Helen Giza wants to use this to improve returns. Depending on exchange rates, around 250 million euros will flow into FMC's coffers with the sale. However, because the clinics in the four countries had a higher value on the books, FMC will have to accept a book loss of 200 million euros this year.

The domestic Grupo Olmos and its subsidiary Well Being SA had already been awarded the contract for the 76 dialysis clinics in Argentina in December. In total, FMC has put investments with a turnover of 1.5 billion euros up for sale - and has already got rid of some of them. In total, the sales already agreed will cost the company 230 million euros this year, 145 million of which will be booked in the first quarter.

(Report by Alexander Hübner. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)