Alro’s major stakeholders Vimetco and Conef to launch public offering

Romanian aluminium producer Alro Slatina has announced that its major shareholders – the globally integrated aluminium producer Vimetco N.V. and Romanian private gas company Conef-Gaz – will launch a secondary public offering of their Alro stocks.

Marian Nastase, Chairman of Alro, said: “This is exciting news for Alro. Alro has become a key player in the global aluminium market, with strong heritage, scale and international presence. We have a strong management team, that has worked together for many years with a clear strategy to continue to grow Alro’s presence with major customers across the EU and beyond, and a proven track record of growth and strong cash flow generation.”

Alro Slatina’s general manager Gheorghe Dobra added: “We have been actively pursuing a strategy to increase our reach into sophisticated industries which demand processed aluminium that meets very specialized technical standards.”

From 2017, Airbus uses Romanian company’s aluminium to manufacture its aircraft. “We are proud that manufacturers such as Airbus come to Alro for aluminium products that are of the highest quality,” highlighted Dobra.

The announcement does not specify how many shares will go on sale and where the sale will take place. However, the shareholders expect to offer Alro stocks to eligible institutional investors and retail investors in and outside of Romania.

Alro Slatina, established in 1961, is part of Alro Group, one of the largest vertically integrated aluminium producers in Europe. The company produces primary and processed aluminium and extruded products. Over 80 percent of Alro’s production is sold internationally, including the U.S.

Alro’s sales are close to EUR 580 million and its operational profit (EBITDA) is over EUR 120 million. The company’s current market capitalisation is nearly EUR 550 million. While Alro doubled its share price in the last twelve months, the liquidity of its stocks is low.

Vimetco N.V., a global vertically-integrated primary and processed aluminium producer, is based in the Netherlands and is owned by Russian investor Vitaliy Machitski. Vimetco N.V. currently holds 84.2 per cent of the shares in Alro. Conef-Gaz is an indirect subsidiary of Vimetco.