Heavy metal

Two metals industry giants, Grupa Boryszew and Grupa Impexmetal (in which Boryszew has a 61 percent share), will officially begin to function as a single entity from the beginning of 2007. The merged company will undergo a serious revamping of its structure. From a gaggle of companies with limited freedom acting within a group, it will be transformed into a unit with four product divisions made up of independent companies or capital groups.

"The role of the headquarters will be limited to strategic and business support," said the president of Boryszew and Impexmetal, Adam Chełchowski. The four planned product divisions are: aluminum; copper; zinc and lead; and polymers - together comprising 12 of the two groups' companies.

The merged entity will continue its capital-expenditure investment in Aluminium Konin-Impexmetal's (AKI) thin-strip and thin-sheet production equipment. This year the group plans to invest zł.120 million and next year a further zł.50 million to complete the zł.230 million investment. AKI plans to focus on high-margin, value-added products, which could help increase its profits to over zł.100 million starting in 2008. The company's 2005 result was zł.36 million.

"Our goal is to reach a net profit of zł.290-310 million in 2007 and zł.380-420 million in 2008," Chełchowski said. In 2005 Grupa Boryszew had a sales turnover of zł.1.8 billion, with a profit of zł.125 million, while Grupa Impexmetal's results were zł.2.6 billion and zł.61 million respectively.

The companies which don't fit into the new four-division scheme may be floated on the Warsaw Stock Exchange or could be sold to strategic investors.