Salzgitter Group with new strategy and establishing new group structure

In its meeting today, the Supervisory Board of Salzgitter AG approved the reorganization of the Group's structure submitted by the Executive Board. The Group’s current structure is to be streamlined further, effective April 1, 2022, as part of the “Salzgitter AG 2030” strategy. The Group's steel activities are to be recombined under the new “Steel Production” and “Steel Processing” business units in line with value added and customer requirements. As a result, the Salzgitter Group will be divided into four segments instead of previously five.

Gunnar Groebler, Chief Executive Officer of Salzgitter AG: “With a view to the transformation already embarked on, we are repositioning our Group as lean, powerful, and reflecting market and customer requirements. The subsidiaries essentially participating in our SALCOS^® (SAlzgitter Low CO₂ Steelmaking) program are to be regrouped under the Steel Production Business Unit. The Steel Processing Business Unit will concentrate on the downstream links in the value chain and on customer processes. Along with leveraging synergies and customer centricity, this realignment will enable even tighter, more focused coordination, thereby supporting the acceleration of our transformation process over the period up until 2033.”

The Steel Production Business Unit will be headed by Ulrich Grethe, who has managed the Strip Steel Business Unit successfully and with great expertise for eight years. This will serve to ensure continuity during the process of transformation that has already commenced. Along with the steel producing companies of Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH and Peiner Träger GmbH, the business unit will also comprise DEUMU Deutsche Erz- und Metall-Union GmbH as an important internal transformation partner for our SALCOS^® program.

The Steel Processing Business Unit will also encompass the two heavy plate mills in Ilsenburg and Mülheim, alongside the steel tubes producers. Burkhard Becker will assume responsibility for this business unit in addition to his function as Salzgitter AG’s Chief Financial Officer. Burkhard Becker: “I am looking forward to taking up this additional challenge. The segment includes a number of steel processing companies of medium size, with similar core processes and operational value drivers. My job will be to set in place and develop the framework encompassing the steel processing companies.”

The Technology and Trading business units will remain unchanged. The Technology Business Unit will continue to be managed by Kai Acker who has systematically and convincingly developed and positioned the business over the past years. After almost 40 years of service to the Salzgitter Group, Volker Schult, head of the Trading Business Unit, will step down from his office on December 31, 2022. “At the end of the year, I will be retiring and will hand over the reins to my successor, Dr. Sebastian Bross who formerly headed up the Plate / Section Steel Business Unit. He will take over a highly motivated team that operates to high professional standards all over the world. My immediate task, however, is to manage the currently very challenging situation on the steel market,” says Volker Schult. Heinz-Gerhard Wente, Chairman of Salzgitter AG’s Supervisory Board, commented as follows: “The Trading Business Unit is an extraordinarily successful business. It is viewed as a valued partner to its customers, from medium-sized companies through to large groups, and this on a global scale. Volker Schult has made exceptional contributions in this context. On behalf of Salzgitter AG’s Supervisory Board, may I offer my thanks to Volker Schult for his many years of service and successful work. We have found an ideal successor in Dr. Sebastian Bross. In recent years, Dr. Bross has overseen sales, logistics and production in his role as managing director in all three large steel sectors of strip, plate and sections. In view of his long track record within the Group and in market and sales he is ideal for the job of coming to terms with the imminent challenges facing the Trading Business Unit.”

We will be providing more detailed information on the annual financial statements of the financial year 2021, the “Salzgitter AG 2030” strategy and the new Group structure at the annual press conference on March 21, 2022.

Source and Photo: Salzgitter