American fund Kohlberg and banking group Crédit des Alpes are becoming the shareholders of the Italian company Redaelli Tecna, the holding company of a group producing steel ropes, pre-stressing concrete and steel cord, used to reinforce car tyres.The largest share of Redaelli Tecna will be acquired by Kohlberg, which has already secured 95% of the capital.Sopaf will be no more a shareholder, while Fin2000 of the Bocconi University will maintain its share. The London branch of Crédit des Alpes, a group having one of its principal places of business in Geneva, acted as the transaction investment banker, together with Vasiliou of New York. During the next phase, Redaelli’s capital will be divided as follows: about 65% to Kohlberg, about 30% to Crédit des Alpes and about 5% to Bocconi’s Fin2000.The value of the transaction was not disclosed but Redaelli Tecna was meanwhile heavily re-capitalised. In 1998, Redaelli Group had a turnover of about 300 billion liras. Its main operations are in Gardone Valtrompia, an iron and steel industrial center near Brescia, but the group owns factories in the province of Naples and, abroad, in France and the USA. With a long tradition – its inception dating 1819 – the Brescia group is one or the world’s largest producers of steel ropes and pre-stressing concrete. Redaelli also supplied the ropes supporting the “Millennium Wheel”, the giant wheel to be built in London, just in front of the Big Ben and the steel framework for a major aqueduct in Libya. In the past, the Italian group produced the suspension ropes of the Storebaelt Bridge, connecting Copenhagen to the Jutland, of the Edinburgh Bridge, and various structural elements of the Rome and Seville stadiums.