Sapa and Alcoa, join the adventure

Global leader

On 8 June 2007 the merger between Sapa and Alcoa Soft Alloy Extrusions became fact. A global market leader in aluminium profiles that has potential for further growth was created. Sapa Profiles today has 111 presses (1,040 to 7,300 tonnes) in 15 countries and more than 12,000 employees.

Improved geographical spread

One evident benefit of the merger is the improved geographical spread resulting in both growing market shares and better penetration of important industry segments. The European market share is 19 per cent. The North American market share increased from 3 to 20 per cent.

Economies of scale

Sapa's new structure will lead to certain economies of scale associated with costs, mainly through common procurement and administrative services. Notwithstanding, it is decisive for long-term value creation that operating on a larger scale also offers more opportunities for in-house training with regard to equipment and process control and, at least equally importantlyl, with regard to organization and working methods.

Sapa has tens of thousands of customers and hundreds of thousands of products. Sapa has a decentralized structure to accomodate its customer mix and meet its operational improvement targets. This implies that each individual country/region bears full responsibility for production and sales in its area.