Bosch eyes listings of sub-divisions to aid acquisitions, CEO says

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German technology group Robert Bosch is open to public listings of certain divisions as it explores financing options for acquisitions, although not as a group or in its core business as an auto supplier, the company chief executive said.

Bosch already has a great deal of expertise on the capital market as an issuer of bonds worth billions, CEO Stefan Hartung said at an event of the ICFW association for business reporters in Frankfurt on Tuesday evening.

But as a group with revenues of over 90 billion euros ($97 billion), the company needs all capital market skills, he added.

"We ourselves are not going to the capital market as Bosch," Hartung said, adding that the legal structure of the group also ruled this out for its business as an auto parts supplier.

This echoed recent comments he made to Manager Magazin, whom he told it was "necessary to have sub-companies listed on the stock exchange" in appropriate areas.

Hartung mapped out Bosch's ambitions to grow in the United States, an underrepresented market in the company's portfolio.

"It is a huge market, and Bosch has to deliver," the CEO said.

Bosch is among the industrial firms competing to acquire heating and ventilation assets worth over $6 billion from Johnson Controls International in the US, sources told Reuters in March.

($1 = 0.9306 euros)

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, Writing by Rachel More, Editing by Madeline Chambers)