Norway's Hydro, Orkla to combine aluminium product businesses

　　Norway's Norsk Hydro and Orkla will merge some of their aluminium product businesses to create a global firm with 47 billion crowns ($8.24 billion) in sales and 1 billion crowns worth of synergies, the two firms said on Monday.

　　The venture, to be named Sapa, will be a 50/50 joint venture and will include Hydro's extruded products business area and Orkla's profiles and building system unit, and its extruded and welded tubes unit.

　　Orkla will, in addition to its 50 percent ownership, receive 1.8 billion crowns in cash from the deal.

　　($1 = 5.7034 Norwegian krones)