European Commission expresses concerns regarding the approval of sale of the segment Flat Rolled Prod-ucts from Aurubis to Wieland

In the course of merger control proceedings regarding the sale of the segment Flat Rolled Products of Aurubis AG (Aurubis) to Wieland Werke AG (Wieland), the European Commission informed Aurubis and Wieland that clearance of the transaction can probably not be achieved with the proposed remedies.

Based on its preliminary assessment, the European Commission, in order to clear the transaction, would currently ask for further remedies that Wieland is not obliged to offer under the agreed Sale and Purchase Agreement. Therefore, in Aurubis’ view, at this stage, execution of the transaction is not any longer more likely than not.

The Parties agreed to continue the merger control proceedings in order to still achieve clearance of the transaction, in particular, based on a revised competitive assessment by the European Commission.

“We do not share, in this form, the Commission’s current assessment that further conditions are necessary to approve the sale of Aurubis AG’s flat rolled products segment to Wieland-Werke,” explains Dr. Erwin Mayr, CEO of the Wieland Group. “In our estimate, both the customers and the entire industry would benefit from the merger. We will therefore continue working intensively on concluding the planned transaction successfully.”

Jürgen Schachler, Aurubis AG Executive Board Chairman, promised the support of his company:

We have always emphasized that we think Wieland-Werke would be a very good owner of our flat rolled products segment. For this reason, we will continue doing everything we can to arrive at a result that satisfies all sides.

Although Aurubis fully supports this approach, the Executive Board has identified strategic alternatives to the transaction as part of a contingency planning.