TB; RE:" AA "
interesting you should mention aluminium, Berney, as I follow that sector very closely. Not unlike the OIX.X and OSX.X, aluminium equities tend to be commodity-driven. The price of primary aluminium is set by the London Metals Exchange. Check out lme.com and in the States, we have only HG98Z (copper futures) on the COMEX. Right now, everybody is hurting.
AA has made a tender offer for AMX and investors have anticipated some dilution, I suppose. AL and RLM also move in sympathy with the LME; KLU is the trader. Pechiney, PY is one ADR; I cannot find other EU companies like VAW or Alusuisse listed on our exchanges; or more exotica like Egyptalum. The Japanese are recycling-based; the Australians have some primary works; Venezuela is trying to sell their primary capacity, and everyone is bidding for it. Norway's Norsk Hydro, NHY moves more with oil and fertilizer than light metals aluminium and magnesium.
The over-capacity in the aluminium biz is due to poor demand from Asia in addition to the CIS (Russia) dumping primary aluminium in the West for cash.
RECY is an interesting American company, Berney - they are buying up all these scrap yards, consolidating them during this time of depressed metal prices.
IMR is the most sophisticated recycling company, Berney. Their concept is to sell a remelting service to CastHouses, delivering hot, liquid metal to CastHouses on demand. They're in bed with Germany's VAW-AluNorf over in the EU. When the Americans appeared a couple of years ago, they quickly grabbed all the cheap, low-end scraps that were traditionally used by (casting alloy makers) "secondaries" and taught the European metalmakers a thing or two.
The biggest (non-primary) scrap consumer in the States is CMIN - they are like a black hole in the geographic center of North America (Lewisport, KY) sucking in all the scrap on the Continent. They make continuous-cast aluminium rolled products. Their main competitor is NX Quanex Corp, who have a giant works in Davenport, IA (but are more heavily weighted by their steelmaking operations). The biggest independent aluminium billet maker is ESCO Easco Aluminum with works in Ohio, North Carolina and Illinois.
-Steve |
