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Hamburg, 13 May 2009 – Aurubis AG has succeeded in achieving a significant improvement in its earnings for the first half-year compared with the first quarter. While the first quarter had been burdened by inventory write-downs, increasing metal prices in the second quarter resulted in positive valuation effects. The loss of € 124 million (EBT) in the first quarter was reduced to € -59 million for the first half-year thanks to the positive earnings of € 65 million for the second quarter. After deduction of the accumulated valuation effects (€ -66 million), there was a positive operating EBT of € 7 million for the first half-year. This reflected the difficult market environment, above all for sulphuric acid and copper scrap, as well as our sound position. Despite the inclusion of Cumerio, revenues at € 3.03 billion were below the prior-year figure of € 3.36 billion on account of the lower metal prices.

Following the decline in the copper price (settlement LME) in the first quarter to US$ 2,770/t, it increased again significantly as the fiscal year progressed. By mid February it had recovered to US$ 3,527/t, while, in the second half of March, prices repeatedly passed the US$ 4,000/t mark. The more positive mood prevailing on the copper market largely resulted from the announcement and completion of extensive copper purchases that were used to increase strategic reserves in China and South Korea. In addition, institutional investors also entered into new commitments.

After an initially positive trend on the market for copper concentrates, the conditions in the spot business recently deteriorated again. Aurubis is not affected by this, since we are already fully supplied with concentrates for the current fiscal year. The market for copper scrap continued to be unsatisfactory, whereas the conditions for precious metal-bearing raw materials and complex recycling materials remained good.

Dr Bernd Drouven, Chief Executive Officer of Aurubis AG, expects earnings to improve slowly in the course of the current fiscal year. “On this basis we assume that the Aurubis Group will achieve a positive operating result. We believe however it is not possible to provide a precise earnings forecast on account of the current economic situation in our business environment. It remains our target to use short-time working and other measures to avoid a reduction in personnel.” Currently 720 of the more than 4,700 employees in the Group are in short-time.

The effects of the poor economic situation were particularly noticeable in the copper product business in the second quarter. The daily business was dominated by great uncertainty and short-term activity on the part of the customer industries.
Signs of the usual seasonal increase in demand that usually starts in the spring were not yet evident.

Declining demand for consumer durables primarily affected the automotive sales markets and white goods. The downturn affected the cable and wire producers with, in some cases, a decline of up to 50 % in order receipts for these sectors compared with the prior year. The energy sector by contrast was relatively stable. Projects that had been planned over a longer period of time ran to schedule. The constant demand from this sector prevented a further decline in wire rod sales.

In the Business Unit (BU) Primary Copper, 1,043,000 tonnes of concentrates were processed in the first half-year (631,000 tonnes in the prior year). Output of sulphuric acid increased commensurately to 1,054,000 tonnes (628,000 tonnes in the prior year).

BU Recycling/Precious Metals produced 102,000 tonnes of copper cathodes (100,000 tonnes in the prior year). Output of precious metals was slightly lower than in the prior-year period.

Some 327,000 tonnes of wire rod were produced in BU Copper Products (282,000 tonnes in the prior year). Output of continuous cast shapes fell to 83,000 tonnes (103,000 tonnes in the prior year).

Apart from the valuation effects, business performance was primarily influenced by the following factors in comparison with the first six months of the prior year:
- Falling product sales from copper processing
- Lower treatment and refining charges for concentrates
- Lower prices for sulphuric acid
- Poor availability of copper scrap and declining refining charges
- One-off expenditure for closing down the vertical casting plant in Olen

Group revenues amounted to € 3,030 million in the first half-year (€ 3,364 million in the prior year). The decline, which is mainly due to the lower copper prices, could not be compensated, despite the inclusion of Cumerio.

At € 246 million, the gross profit was significantly down on the figure of € 388 million for the first six months of the prior year, primarily due to the above-mentioned factors.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) amounted to € 17 million (€ 201 million in the prior year). At the same time, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) also declined in the first six months to € -35 million. In the first half of 2007/08, EBIT amounted to € 171 million.

After taking into account net interest, earnings before taxes amounted to € -59 million in the first half of 2008/09 (€ 161 million in the prior year). This reflects the higher interest expense for the financing of the shares acquired in Cumerio sa/nv, Brussels.

After deducting the tax income resulting from the negative result, a consolidated loss of € 53 million remains for the first half of fiscal year 2008/09, compared with a consolidated net profit of € 119 million in the prior year.

Outlook

We expect the copper scrap market to remain volatile in the next few months. Small production losses resulting from shortfalls in the copper scrap supply can in future also not be ruled out. The trends in the sector of other recycling materials, which also includes electrical and electronic scrap, are considerably more positive. We expect our facilities to continue to be fully utilised.

The copper market will also continue to be strongly influenced by Chinese demand. The first signs of a tentative recovery in the European economy are becoming apparent, not least due to the extensive economic support programmes. A physical shortage of copper cannot be ruled out, given the continuing production cutbacks on the smelter side, declining stocks at the metal exchanges and very low stocks along the value added chain. The copper prices are thus receiving a firm fundamental basis despite poor economic trends in the traditional copper sales regions. However, they must be expected to remain volatile.

We are still expecting demand for copper products to pick up in the second half of the fiscal year. Apart from the started economic programmes, this view is based on the low stocks at our customers. We will for the time being continue the current short-time working in order to reduce the ongoing costs.

After a very weak start to the second quarter, we expect the market situation for sulphuric acid to ease slightly, in particular in the fertiliser industry sector. A repeat of the outstanding good sales and price situation, as in the last fiscal year, is however not yet foreseeable. We expect sales of the acid to be largely ensured due to our high product quality and long-term oriented sales strategy.

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