Siemens Sells Austin Plant to Singapore-Based Flextronics

AUSTIN-A 192,000-sf manufacturing plant and related assets of German company Siemens AG are being sold to Flextronics International Inc., based in Singapore. Flextronics will assume plant ownership Oct. 1.

The company has announced plants to relocate the cordless phone manufacturing division to its Telecom Corridor plant in Richardson, a North Dallas suburb. The Austin facility employs 250 workers who have been offered relocation packages to head north to Dallas. Flextronics’ US headquarters is located in San Jose, CA, and maintains a small sales office in Austin.

Siemens earlier this year disclosed plans to outsource its US cordless phone manufacturing operations. The Austin plant primarily serves as the production base for Gigaset phones, geared to small office/home office users.

Meanwhile, Siemens is searching for space for 25 city workers who deal with product management, sales and marketing. The company has maintained an Austin location since the early 1990s when it bought Rolm Communications Inc.

The deal marks the third Siemens acquisition by Flextronics since July 28 when it bought a hardware division of Italdata, a joint operation between Siemens and Telecom Italia. On Aug. 3, Flextronics acquired Siemens’ mobile phone production site in Pandrup, Denmark.