German corporation and slush-fund hedger Siemens announced today it had signed a contract with holding Arques Industries to sell it 80.2% of Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices division (SHC).

The deal will go into effect on October 1 this year. Siemens will get rid of its remaining 19.8% stake by 2010. Apart from all that, Siemens will also inject €50 million into SHCs accounts and give a credit line of €20 million if the going gets tough at some point in the future.

Arques will not immediately start restructuring SHC by telling workers they were fired - at least not in Germany. The holding contractually obliged to leave the plants in Munich and Bocholt alone for the next three years. SHC employs 2100 people in Munich and Bocholt, where the majority of employees work. Arques will be allowed to continue using the Siemens brand for two more years.

SHC was founded back in October 2005 and churned out telephones and home entertaiment devices. The unit is responsible for the highly popular Gigaset line of cordless telephones, which accounted for two thirds of SHC's revenue of €792 million in 2007.

The company made a profit of €13 million in the same year. If Siemens itself is to be believed, SHC holds the top spot in the European phone market. Apparently, one in two households in Germany owns a Gigaset phone, whereas one in five households own one outside of Germany. X