ABB Plans to Spin Off its Robotics Division as a Separately Listed Company
April 21, 2025
- A strong performer in its industry at the core of secular and future automation trends
- Plan for a listing in the second quarter of 2026
- Foreseen to be distributed to ABB’s shareholders as a dividend in-kind in proportion to existing shareholding
ABB has announced that it will launch a process to propose to its Annual General Meeting 2026 to decide on a 100 percent spin-off of its Robotics division. The intention is for the business to start trading as a separately listed company during the second quarter of 2026.
The board believes listing ABB Robotics as a separate company will optimize both companies’ ability to create customer value, grow and attract talent. Both companies will benefit from a more focused governance and capital allocation. ABB will continue to focus on its long-term strategy, building on its leading positions in electrification and automation.
ABB Chairman Peter Voser
ABB Robotics is a technology leader and provides intelligent automation solutions to help its global customer base achieve improved productivity, flexibility and simplicity to solve operational challenges including labor shortages and the need to operate more sustainably. Customer value is created through the differentiated offering of the broadest robotics platforms, including Autonomous Mobile Robots, software and AI combined with proven domain expertise to a broad range of traditional and new industry segments. More than 80 percent of the offering is software/AI enabled.
ABB Robotics is a leader in its industry and there are limited business and technology synergies between the ABB Robotics business and the remainder of ABB divisions, with different demand and market characteristics. We believe this change will support value creation in both the ABB Group and in the separately listed pure play robotics business.
ABB CEO Morten Wierod
The ABB Robotics division is a strong performer amongst its peers. Under the ABB Way decentralized operating model ABB Robotics has proven its double-digit margin resilience in most quarters since 2019. The market has seemingly stabilized – supporting the divisional order growth – after what has been an unusually volatile market situation which has included the normalization of order patterns after the period of pre-buys when the supply chain was strained.
The company will be listed with a strong capital structure, is well invested with a solid cash flow profile and operates through its local-for-local set-up with regional manufacturing hubs in Europe (Sweden), Asia (China) and the Americas (United States).
The ABB Robotics division has approximately 7,000 employees. With 2024 revenues of $2.3 billion it represented about 7 percent of ABB Group revenues and had an Operational EBITA margin of 12.1 percent.
If shareholders decide in favor of the proposal, the spin-off is planned to be done through a share distribution, whereby ABB Ltd.’s shareholders will receive shares in the company to be listed (working name “ABB Robotics”) as a dividend in-kind in proportion to their existing shareholding.
As from the first quarter of 2026, the Machine Automation division, which together with ABB Robotics currently forms the Robotics & Discrete Automation business area, will become a part of the Process Automation business area, where the customer value creation ability in divisions will benefit from technology synergies for software and control technologies, for example towards hybrid industries. The Machine Automation business holds a leading position in the high-end segment for solutions based on PLCs, IPCs, servo motion, industrial transport systems and vision and software.
The strategy and business priorities remain the responsibility of the divisional management team, under the ABB Way operating model.
ABB is a global technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. By connecting its engineering and digitalization expertise, ABB helps industries run at high performance, while becoming more efficient, productive and sustainable so they outperform. At ABB, we call this ‘Engineered to Outrun’. The company has over 140 years of history and around 110,000 employees worldwide. ABB’s shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (ABBN) and Nasdaq Stockholm (ABB). www.abb.com
Important notice about forward-looking information
This press release includes forward-looking information and statements as well as other statements concerning the planned spin-off of our robotics business. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about the factors that may affect our future performance, including the economic conditions of the regions and industries that are major markets for ABB. These expectations, estimates and projections are generally identifiable by statements containing words such as “believes”, ”foresees”, “expects”, “intends”, “plans”, or similar expressions. However, there are many risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, that could impact the spin-off, including business risks associated with the volatile global economic environment and political conditions.
Although ABB Ltd believes that its expectations reflected in any such forward looking statement are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that those expectations will be achieved.
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