Aurubis AG, Europe’s biggest copper smelter, is still seeking growth via acquisitions, CEO Juergen Schachler said on Thursday.
“As a practically debt-free company we possess a comfortable financial scope,” Schachler told shareholders in Hamburg.
“But we intend to undertake small or medium-sized acquisitions rather than a large transaction.”
Schachler repeated a previous forecast for the 2018/19 financial year that operating EBT would be moderately lower and operating return on capital employed would be slightly lower.
Aurubis last July completed its purchase of the remaining shares in copper wire and rod maker Deutsche Giessdraht.
“Since this first success it has become more quiet around us regarding the subject of acquisitions,” Schachler said. “That does not mean that we are not highly active examining various possibilities.”
“This means that we are doing this very carefully.”
Schachler has launched an expansion into other metals alongside copper.
The European Commission on Feb. 6 blocked the planned sale of Aurubis’ flat rolled products (FRP) business to Germany’s Wieland. Aurubis said it may seek an another buyer.
“We are now examining additional strategic alternatives for this business sector,” Schachler said, adding the primary goal was to see the FRP business “develop well in the long term”.
Schachler said he still expected a “fundamentally positive development” in Aurubis’ raw materials and product markets in the current financial year.
On Feb. 13, Aurubis reported a sharp fall in operating earnings following unplanned plant shutdowns for maintenance.
The company will undertake additional scheduled maintenance shutdowns at its copper plants in Pirdop in Bulgaria and Luenen in Germany in the 2018/19 financial year, Schachler said.
These shutdowns will have an impact on earnings of about 23 million euros ($26 million), he said.
But the company has achieved a significantly higher level of plant availability than in previous years.
Smelter units in the past suffered several production disruptions a year. This has been cut to one per year, he said.
Former Aurubis CEO Werner Marnette told shareholders he was concerned about the influence of German steelmaker Salzgitter AG which holds about 25 percent of Aurubis.
Marnette questioned whether Salzgitter opposed investment in Aurubis and asked if it planned a takeover.
Salzgitter CEO Heinz Joerg Fuhrmann, also a member of the Aurubis supervisory board, said Salzgitter had consistently voted in favour of all investment programmes submitted to the Aurubis supervisory board for approval.
Fuhrmann told shareholders he had made remarks in 2015 that Salzgitter could increase its shareholding in Aurubis and that a merger could be a vision for the future.
“Nothing has changed about this,” Fuhrmann said.
($1 = 0.8780 euros)
(By Michael Hogan, Editing by Riham Alkousaa, Jason Neely and David Evans)
