Earnings forecast cut
Damage at Aurubis from metal theft greater than expected
09/01/2023, 00:28
In June it became known that thieves had stolen tons of intermediate products containing precious metals from the Hamburg copper manufacturer over the years. Now Aurubis is apparently falling victim to a metal theft organized by a gang. The series leaves deep holes in the balance sheet.
According to its own statements, the Hamburg-based copper manufacturer Aurubis assumes that it has again been the victim of metal theft and is therefore canceling its forecast for the year. Only in June did it become known that a gang of thieves had stolen intermediate products containing precious metals from the company for years, generating proceeds of around 20 million euros.
As Aurubis announced in Hamburg in the evening, “considerable deviations from the target stock as well as deviations from special samples of certain deliveries of input materials in the recycling area were found during the inspection of the metal inventory”. Based on these indications, it can be assumed that “the company has become the subject of further criminal acts – going beyond the cases published in June 2023”. According to Aurubis, it has turned on the State Criminal Police Office. The extent of the damage could not be determined with certainty, it said.
According to the information in the mandatory stock exchange notification, Aurubis has started an extraordinary inventory of metal inventories. The result is expected at the end of September 2023. It cannot currently be ruled out that damage in the “low, three-digit” million range has occurred. The damage will weigh on the result for the 2022/23 financial year. The forecast corridor for the current 2022/23 financial year of 450 million to 550 million euros can therefore not be maintained.
The news caused concern among investors on the stock market, the Aurubis share fell significantly on the Tradegate trading platform in an initial reaction. According to Aurubis, it is the world’s leading supplier of non-ferrous metals and one of the largest copper recyclers in the world.
In mid-June, the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office had more than 30 properties in Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse searched for metal theft at Aurubis. The public prosecutor’s office announced at the time that six men had been arrested. The accused and other, as yet unknown, accomplices are said to have stolen several tons of by-products from copper production containing precious metals from the company premises in different ways.