Brink's sells off coal assets

The Brink's Company -- which provides security services related to cash-handling, ATM services, guarding, and more -- announced that it has sold coal assets to Massey Energy Company for $9.4 million in cash. As part of the deal, Massey also is assuming $5 million in leasehold and reclamation liabilities, and Massey has agreed to purchase other coal assets and rights from Brink's in the future.

The Brink's Company recently spun off Brink's Home Security as its own unit, and with the sale of the coal assets, the company focuses even more on its "secure logistics" operations.

Brink's was originally formed as a carrier service for payroll funds and other valuable assets and was purchased by The Pittston Company, which was a coal company that was in the process of diversifying itself with an investment in Brink's made in 1956. Pittston already had a footprint in the armored car business with its subsidiary, United States Trucking Corporation. The divestment of the company energy assets started in the late 1990s (The Pittston Company had faced more than two decades of difficulties in its energies business, including worker strikes, price instabilities and a 1972 environmental disaster). In 2003, The Pittston Company official became The Brink's Company, as the company completed its shift from coal and energy into logistics and security. Only a limited number of coal assets -- such as those recently sold to Massey Energy Company -- remained tied to The Brink's Company.