Cronimet secures banking arrangement

Cronimet Holding GmbH, a Germany-based stainless steel recycling firm, says it has extended an existing syndicated loan agreement until 2025 with a consortium of 13 European banks. The agreement also involves an increase of the loan volume by more than 100 million euros ($98 million) to approximately 700 million euros ($686 million), Cronimet says.

“The early extension and the increase in the credit volume are a strong sign from the banking market and give us financing security for the upcoming years, which are likely to be rather difficult in view of the current geopolitical and economic environment,” says Bernhard Kunsmann, chief financial officer of Cronimet.

The company says the financing package also includes a credit line that allows Cronimet to “respond more flexibly to the market environment and, in particular, to volatilities in the raw materials markets.”

Described as lead banks in the banking consortium are Germany-based Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and London-based HSBC, with the consortium “expanded and diversified to include several regional and also international banks,” the metals recycling firm says.

“The banks are not only rewarding our good corporate development in recent years, but also our sustainable business model,” Kunsmann says.

Cronimet, in a recent sustainability report, pointed to the resource conservation aspects of its recycling activities. The company reported healthy earnings in 2021 and says the first two quarters of 2022 were profitable, but says “the outlook has clouded over” in the second half of this year.

“Currently, it is difficult to predict how market demand will develop in view of rising energy prices and the associated decline in stainless steel production,” Cronimet CEO Jürgen Pilarsky says. “Thanks to the very good earnings performance to date, I am nevertheless very confident that we will achieve our target result for 2022 in the group.”

The Cronimet Holding Group, founded in 1980, says globally it now has more than 1,500 employees at 68 locations, including 11 offices and yards in the United States.