It’s Aurubis’ anniversary! Under the slogan 150 Years of the Future, the company is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding: on April 28, 1866, Norddeutsche Affinerie AG (NA), the predecessor of what is now Aurubis AG, was entered in the Hamburg Commercial Register.
Aurubis – these seven letters now stand for one of the leading players in the global copper industry. The 6,300 employees of the group are proud of the development of the small gold and silver separating plant, founded in 1770 in Hamburg-Altona, into the leading integrated copper group and the world’s largest copper recycler. Already in 1913, the company had grown so much that it moved from the narrow Elbstrasse to the current plant premises on the island of Peute – which is still the group’s largest plant as well as its headquarters. After two World Wars and internal growth, NA went public in 1998. It acquired its first production site outside of Hamburg, Hüttenwerke Kayser in Lünen, in 1999. This was followed by further acquisitions and international development: Prymetall and its 50 % holding in Schwermetall (both located in Stolberg) in 2002, the Belgian company Cumerio with several sites in Europe in 2008 and the Luvata Rolled Products Division in 2011. Since then, Aurubis has produced outside of Europe with its site in the US. In 2008, Salzgitter came on board as a stabilising major shareholder of Aurubis. In February 2009, the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting passed a resolution to rename NA, adopting the new name Aurubis – a combination of the Latin words “aurum”, gold, and “rubrum”, red – the “red gold”.
On April 28, 2016, the new, extensive company history book Cu 150.0 will be released, not only looking back on 150 years of company and copper history but also providing stories and anecdotes as well. The new book was developed by a team of academics from Neumann & Kamp over the past year and a half. Not only were various archives combed through, but a number of people who experienced the company’s history first hand were also interviewed. The book, which will be released by the publisher August Dreesbach Verlag, can be downloaded at www.aurubis.com starting on Thursday and will be available for purchase as a hardcover edition at the end of April. On the day of the anniversary, the book will be distributed to all 6,300 employees at the Aurubis sites worldwide.
Around noon on the day of the anniversary, the First Mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, will cut a large anniversary cake for the employees at the Aurubis headquarters on the island of Peute in Hamburg to kick off the celebration on site.
On the evening of April 28, there will be an official celebration of the company’s anniversary with guests from the worlds of industry and politics, customers and business partners from around the world at the Cruise Center Altona, just a stone’s throw away from Aurubis’ original location.
Following a welcome address by Prof Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, Chairman of the Aurubis Supervisory Board, and Erwin Faust, Executive Board Spokesman, the guest of honour of the evening and the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, will take the floor as the keynote speaker.
Today, Aurubis is the leading integrated copper group and the largest copper recycler worldwide. It produces more than 1 Mt of copper cathodes annually and from them a variety of copper products.
Aurubis has about 6,300 employees, production sites in Europe and the USA and an extensive service and sales system for copper products in Europe, Asia and North America.
The core business is the production of marketable copper cathodes from copper concentrates, copper scrap and other recycling raw materials. These are processed within the group into continuous cast wire rod, shapes, rolled products and strip, as well as specialty wire and profiles made of copper and copper alloys. Precious metals and a number of other products, such as sulphuric acid and iron silicate, round off the product portfolio.