ARNHEM, The Netherlands - Akzo Nobel announced plans to divest the company's industrial polyurethane (PUR) adhesives and systems business with a sale to the Sika Group. Terms were not disclosed.

The business is part of Casco A/S, based in Fredensborg, Denmark, and had sales of 17 million euros in 2003. The business is a supplier of adhesives used in in the manufacture of truck trailers, building-facade panels and wind-turbine blades.

Rudy van der Meer, the member of Akzo Nobel's Board of Management responsible for Coatings, said the PUR adhesives business has a "peripheral relationship" with the company's coatings businesses and no longer fits the coatings portfolio "from a strategic perspective."