Corus Nederland BV rejects sale of aluminium unit
The Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus has made an announcement, giving an update on the final status of plans to sell its aluminium unit to France's Pechiney S.A.. The company stated regrets to announce that the Supervisory Board of Corus Nederland BV has decided to reject the Management Board's decision to proceed with the definitive sale of the unit to Pechiney. Upon such developments, Board of Corus will be filing a request to the Enterprise Chamber of Amsterdam Court of Appeal today, in order to allow the sale to proceed. The decision of the Court is expected to come out on March 13, 2003. Furthermore, Corus stated that despite the measures taken for reducing capacity and improving competitiveness, the UK operations continue to create loss, and the strategy of Corus for carbon steel aims to eliminate such loss. With such concerns, Corus plans further capacity reductions and also considers concentrating on reducing operations on to fewer sites. The £543 billion sale of the aluminium unit was thought to provide financing for the measures needed in the UK steel operations. The company will announce its annual results by the end of this week, meanwhile it is indicated that a loss of £393 million is expected. Corus has 26'000 employees in the UK with its major steel making plants located in Teesside, Scunthrope and Port Talbot.