Salzgitter AG is a German company, one of the largest steel producers in Europe with an annual output of around seven million tonnes.

Salzgitter AG
Company typeAktiengesellschaft
IndustrySteel
PredecessorReichswerke Hermann Göring
Founded1858; 166 years ago (1858)
HeadquartersSalzgitter, Lower Saxony, Germany
Key people
Gunnar Groebler (CEO and Chairman of the executive board), Heinz-Gerhard Wente (Chairman of the supervisory board)
ProductsSteel products including tubes, steel trading, packaging and filling systems
Revenue10.791 billion (2023)
€251.4 million (2023)
€200.1 million (2023)
Total assets€8.689 billion (2023)
Total equity€4.835 billion (2023)
Number of employees
25,183 (average, 2023)
Websitewww.salzgitter-ag.de

With over 100 subsidiaries and associated companies, the Group is structured in four business units – Steel Production, Steel Processing, Trading and Technology – under the umbrella of a management holding company.[1]

blast furnace in Salzgitter at night

Activities

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The group's principal activity is to manufacture steel and associated products. The products include heavy profile steel sheets, hot-rolled wide strips and steel strips, heavy and medium weight plates, and sheet steel. The company also owns 29.99% of Aurubis which is the largest copper producer in Europe and as well the largest copper recycler worldwide.

History

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The history of the company goes back to 1858, when in Peine the Ilseder Hütte started. The company was part in 1937 as Reichswerke Hermann Göring,[2][3][4][5][6][7] which went on to become the largest German economic enterprise in the Third Reich[2][3][8] along with I.G. Farben and Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG. The Reichswerke were liquidated in 1953. Its legal successor became the state owned AG für Bergbau- und Hüttenbetrieb, renamed Salzgitter AG in 1961.[2] During the 1960s, the company was the largest state-owned corporation in the world. It went public on the German Stock Exchange in 1998.

In 1970, Salzgitter AG merged with the mining company Ilseder Hütte,[6][7] which was founded in 1858 in the Hanover area in Germany to manufacture pig iron from the ore discovered in the area between Hanover and Magdeburg. The initial shareholders of Ilseder Hütte were primarily local landowners and merchants. In the 1920s the company was involved in coal mining in Westphalia to safeguard the supplies of coal required for pig iron manufacturing. The company grew through a number or mergers and acquisitions, but was hit by the economic crisis of the 1970s and became state owned through the merger with Salzgitter AG.[9]

In 2007, Salzgitter bought Kloeckner-Werke with its filling and packaging business KHS, as part of its strategy to enter into new industrial sectors. One year later Salzgitter took over SIG Beverages from the Switzerland-based SIG packaging group, expanding its share of the plastic bottle market. This deal included the SIG subsidiaries Corpoplast, Asbofill, Plasmax and Moldtec.[10] Salzgitter planned to commercialise the Plasmax technology to improve the barrier properties of PET bottles.[11]

In December 2008 Salzgitter AG moved up from the MDAX index to the DAX index of top 30 German companies. It was demoted back to the MDAX in June 2010. Since 2019, Salzgitter AG is part of the small-cap SDAX index.[citation needed]

Finances

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The key trends for Salzgitter AG are, as of each financial year:[12]

Year 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Total revenue (€ mn.) 8,990 9,278 8,547 7,091 9,767 12,553 10,791
Net profit (€ mn.) 136 273 −378 −292 546 1,060 146
Total Assets (€ mn.) 8,318 8,757 8,618 8,237 10,255 11,103 10,502
Number of employees 25,074 25,363 25,227 24,416 24,255 24,569 25,183

Ownership

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The largest shareholders in December 2023 were:[13]

Holder Share
State of Lower Saxony 26.5%
GP Günter Papenburg AG 25.1%
Institutional investors 20.9%
Private investors 14.1%
Salzgitter AG 10%
Other investors 3.4%

Controversy

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In 2019, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (BKartA) fined Salzgitter AG – alongside Thyssenkrupp and Voestalpine – and three individuals a combined €646 million ($712 million) for price fixing after establishing that they had agreed on certain surcharges for steel plates from 2002 to 2016.[14]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Business Units". Salzgitter AG. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Neumann, Klaus. Shifting memories: the Nazi past in the new Germany, University of Michigan Press 2000, pp. 18–40. ISBN 0-472-11147-7
  3. ^ a b Wengenroth, Ulrich. The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in Germany, in Toninelli, Pierangelo Maria: The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, Cambridge University Press 2000, pp. 103–127. ISBN 0-521-78081-0
  4. ^ "Germany: Goring's Legacy". Time. 15 December 1965. Retrieved on 13 December 2009.
  5. ^ "Riskanter Kurs Archived 27 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine" (in German). Die Zeit. 3 February 1989, No. 6. Retrieved on 13 December 2009.
  6. ^ a b Salzgitter AG – eine Stadt für den Stahl (in German). NDR online. 17 March 2009. Retrieved on 13 December 2009.
  7. ^ a b "Company History: Salzgitter AG". Answers.com. Retrieved on 13 December 2009.
  8. ^ Overy, Richard J. War and economy in the Third Reich, Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1995, pp. 144–174. ISBN 0-19-820599-6
  9. ^ de:Ilseder Hütte
  10. ^ Patton, Dominique (16 January 2008). "Salzgitter to buy SIG Beverages unit". Benerage Daily. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  11. ^ "Plasmax included in acquisition of SIG Beverages / Further development of coating process". Plasteurope. 3 June 2008. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  12. ^ "Salzgitter AG Umsatz, Kennzahlen, Bilanz/GuV". finanzen.net.
  13. ^ "Aktionärsstruktur". Salzgitter AG (in German). Retrieved 19 March 2024.
  14. ^ Arno Schuetze (12 December 2019), German antitrust watchdog fines Thyssen, Salzgitter, Voestalpine Reuters.
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