On December 20, voestalpine Stahl GmbH, a company of the listed voestalpine AG, and the Polish company Zlomrex S.A. signed an agreement on the sale of the voestalpine Group's steel trading group. Zlomrex S.A. will initially take over 74.9% of voestalpine Stahlhandel GmbH. There are mutual purchase and sale rights for the remaining 25.1%, which can be exercised in two years at the earliest.
Zlomrex S.A. will retain the voestalpine Stahlhandel Group in its current structure and does not plan to change the number of employees. The transaction is still subject to the necessary antitrust approvals. The agreement is expected to come into effect in the first calendar quarter of 2007.
The voestalpine Stahlhandel Group recently achieved an annual turnover of just under EUR 400 million and employs around 600 people. The company is headquartered in Linz and has five locations of its own and three subsidiaries/shareholdings in Austria. In addition, the Group has a strong presence in Central and Eastern Europe with seven companies in Croatia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.