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Yesterday, Wabtec Corp. announced it completed the acquisition of Rütgers Rail S.p.A.'s assets from Rütgers AG for $36 million cash. Italy-based Rutgers Rail supplies brake shoes, disc pads and interior trim components to European freight and passenger railroads.

Wabtec officials expect the assets — renamed CoFren S.r.l. (in Italy), FrenTec S.A. (France) and CosRail GmbH (Germany) — to generate about $45 million in revenue this year. The company is forecasting total 2005 revenue of about $900 million.

"With this acquisition, we expect Wabtec’s sales outside of North America to be about 25 percent of our total sales compared to about 5 percent when we went public 10 years ago," said Wabtec Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer William Kassling in a prepared statement.