business (Sulzer Textile) to the Italian Promatech Group. Sulzer Medica was separated from the Sulzer company through a spin-off in 2001, renamed to Centerpulse and sold to the US medical company Zimmer in 2003, where it is still managed as a successful business unit. With the sale of the compressor business Burckhardt to its management in 2002, the divestiture program was finished. A new start The time since 2003 is called a new beginning. Since then, the Group has been smaller but more profitable and has recorded strong growth. Sulzer increased operating income and net income by more than 50 percent. In the years to come, Sulzer strengthened the market positions of its divisions by several acquisitions. The company’s Metco business acquired the Canadian Ambeon division of Westaim and German OSU Machine Construction in 2004. The same year, Sulzer Pumps took over the Johnston, Crown, and Paco pump activities from Precision Castparts Corp. (PCC), located in Houston, Texas, USA, and in Wuxi, China. Sulzer Chemtech acquired US Cana-Tex in 2005, strengthening its field services for separation columns, Swiss companies Mixpac, Werfo and Mold in 2006 to expand static mixing activities, followed by the separation business of UK-based KnitMesh Ltd in 2007 and several tower field service companies in Australia, Thailand, India and Germany in 2009. Sulzer’s service business (Turbo Services) expanded its business in South America in 2008 with the acquisition of Capime. In 2005, a Swiss-government sponsored historical study revealed that Sulzer provided fissile material in the 1970s for the South African nuclear weapons program. Following discussions with the Division of Trade of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Sulzer said to only supply important parts for uranium enrichment plants to South Africa on condition that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be allowed to surveil South Africa. Otherwise, the company would only deliver non-sensitive equipment. Meanwhile, the Swiss Federation of Commerce and Industry intervened in the debate and indirectly exerted pressure in favor of admitting the deal. Later, when it became known that compressors had been supplied to an enrichment plant in South Africa, Sulzer claimed its South African subsidiary, over which it did not exert any control legally, might have supplied such compressors and that Sulzer had not been informed about that. In 2007, the Viennese investors Ronny Pecik and Georg Stumpf together with the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg acquired a majority stake in Sulzer.