Reorganization of titanium business: ThyssenKrupp Stainless to create high-performance materials unit under leadership of ThyssenKrupp VDM

Thursday, Jul 02, 2009

As part of the restructuring of the ThyssenKrupp Group, ThyssenKrupp Stainless AG is reorganizing its titanium business: The activities of ThyssenKrupp Titanium GmbH are to be transferred to ThyssenKrupp VDM GmbH and combined in a specialized high-performance materials unit. The Stainless group expects the reorganization to provide more growth opportunities for the titanium business. The Supervisory Board of ThyssenKrupp Stainless has now approved this measure. The merger will take effect at October 1, 2009.

At present, titanium operations are carried out in Germany by ThyssenKrupp Titanium GmbH (Essen) and in Italy by ThyssenKrupp Titanium S.p.A. (Terni), both of which are assigned to ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni.

The Essen plant melts titanium sponge and scrap into titanium ingots and slabs and processes them into billets, bars and sheet. Further processing to coil, tube and sheet takes place at the Terni facility, with key production steps being carried out by ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni.

Under the reorganization, the worldwide sales operations of ThyssenKrupp Titanium including the Milan sales office as well as the Essen production site will be transferred to ThyssenKrupp VDM (Werdohl), which produces nickel alloys and high-alloy special stainless steels. ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni will retain responsibility for the further processing operations in Terni.

"The reorganization will significantly strengthen the high-performance materials business in the Stainless group," emphasizes Dr. Jürgen Olbrich, Chairman of the Management Board at ThyssenKrupp VDM. "Combining our operations in this specialty area makes good sense, not least because ThyssenKrupp Titanium and ThyssenKrupp VDM already share markets such as the aircraft industry and the chemical and energy sectors and have strong overlaps in their customer relationships," Olbrich continues. ThyssenKrupp Stainless believes that the planned growth strategy for titanium can be realized more effectively as part of a combined group under the leadership of ThyssenKrupp VDM with its global sales and distribution network. In addition, the reorganization will allow the more efficient use of purchasing, sales and administrative capacities.

ThyssenKrupp VDM and ThyssenKrupp Titanium, both companies of the ThyssenKrupp Stainless group (Duisburg/Germany), are world-leading suppliers of high-performance materials. ThyssenKrupp VDM has around 1,750 employees at production sites in Werdohl, Altena, Unna and Siegen (all Germany) and in the USA. It also has a global sales and distribution organization. In 2007/08 the company shipped roughly 43,000 metric tons of nickel alloys and high-alloy special stainless steels. ThyssenKrupp Titanium has production facilities in Essen (165 employees) and Terni (140 employees) and manufactured around 4,300 tons of titanium products in the past fiscal year.

Source: ThyssenKrupp