Business model – robust yet flexible

In these challenging times, Aurubis is rock-solid – thanks in part to our business model and the course that has been set over the past several years. But what makes this business model what it is?

Being smart and connected doesn’t work without metals. Whether renewable energies, electric vehicles, digitalization, or urbanization, the demand for metals will continue to rise. For more than 150 years, Aurubis has produced copper and other metals that are crucial for modernization and for the ongoing development of our lives over the next decades. This is how we create the foundation for technologies of the future.

Thanks to our metallurgical know-how, state-of-the-art facilities, and groundbreaking environmental standards within our industry, Aurubis is a leading global copper recycler and provider of non-ferrous metals. Our main area of expertise is the processing and optimal utilization of complex concentrates and recycling raw materials to produce metals of the highest purity.

In addition to our main metal, copper, these include precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum group metals, but also metals such as lead, nickel, tin, zinc, and selenium. Additional by-products including sulfuric acid, iron silicate, and synthetic minerals round off the product portfolio.

Our customers include the semifinished product industry, the electrical engineering, electronics, and chemical industries, as well as suppliers for the environmental technology, construction, and automotive sectors.

Sustainability plays an important role in all of our activities. “Aurubis responsibly transforms raw materials into value” – following this maxim, sustainable conduct and business activities are integral aspects of our corporate strategy.

Aurubis accomplished a great deal in fiscal year 2019/20. We have been able to handle the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on both the production side and the earnings side thus far, and we fulfilled the forecast for the past fiscal year that we published in December 2019. In particular, the good operating performance of our plant facilities and higher precious metal prices supported earnings.

But Aurubis, too, felt the impacts of the pandemic-related lockdown in Europe and recorded substantially weaker demand for copper products. This is where our broad position and the flexibility of our business model served us well. Instead of manufacturing copper products such as wire rod from copper cathodes, we sold more copper cathodes to China, for example, and were therefore able to cushion the impacts of reduced product demand.

Despite the challenging environment in fiscal year 2019/20, Aurubis is very stable from a financial perspective and is successfully implementing its strategy. In May 2020, we announced the acquisition of the Metallo Group and successfully placed a Schuldschein loan with an ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) component  – which is being used to finance the Metallo transaction, among other things. In July, we acquired the Berlin software developer azeti – a key building block of our new digital strategy. In early March 2020, Aurubis paid out the dividend for fiscal year 2018/19, and based on our strong balance sheet position and good liquidity situation, we started a share buyback program in March 2020.