Salzgitter Reports Pre-Tax Profit of €229.3 Million in Nine Months
Key Facts
Salzgitter said on November 12 that it posted pre-tax profit of €229.3 million in the first nine months of 2026, compared with a loss of €72.7 million in the same period of 2025. Operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization came to €534.9 million, versus €224.0 million a year earlier. The company said these figures reflected the impact of valuing the Aurubis convertible bond, which amounted to negative €124.2 million. This effect highlights the difference between reported results and measures that exclude fluctuations in the bond’s valuation. The improvement came alongside higher external sales, which the company partly attributed to the full consolidation of HKM for the first time in the third quarter and to higher selling prices.
External sales reached €7.3 billion in the first nine months, compared with €6.9 billion in the same period of 2025. Salzgitter said the full consolidation of HKM for the first time in the third quarter contributed to sales growth, alongside higher selling prices. This places the revenue increase in the context of a change in the group’s scope as well as price movements, rather than activity levels alone. The P28 earnings-improvement initiative generated sustainable effects worth €146 million through the end of September. That exceeded the program’s full-year 2026 target of €122 million before the year was over.
Chief Executive Gunnar Groebler said results improved across all business units and that the acquisition of HKM secures important steelmaking capacity for the long term. But he said that “the lack of growth momentum and energy prices that are uncompetitive by international standards remain a major challenge.” His comments link the period’s improved results with ongoing pressures in the operating environment, particularly weak growth and energy costs. The company had described the economic environment as weak, with no growth drivers in Germany and Europe. At the same time, it said amended European trade-defense measures and the introduction of the CBAM had improved conditions for the European steel industry.
The energy data cited by Salzgitter illustrate some of the pressures it described. The average spot price for electricity was €108 per megawatt-hour in the first nine months of 2026, while the average gas price was €51 per megawatt-hour. These levels represented increases of around 20% for electricity and more than 60% for gas compared with the same period a year earlier. The increases come amid Groebler’s comments that energy prices are not internationally competitive. On another cost front, the P28 program reported sustainable effects that exceeded its annual target, while the market challenges identified by the company remained in place.
Salzgitter expects sales of around €10.0 billion in 2026, and operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization under its VX measure of between €800 million and €875 million. It also targets pre-tax earnings under its EBT VX measure of between €400 million and €475 million, and a return on capital slightly above the previous year’s level. The company said forecasts have limited reliability in the fourth quarter because of geopolitical and economic uncertainty, as well as fluctuations in the valuation of listed assets. Groebler expressed cautious optimism about 2027 while stressing that weak growth momentum and energy prices remained challenges. Alongside its results and full-year guidance, the group aims to present steel produced through the new SALCOS route starting in the second half of 2027; the facilities under construction have annual capacity of around two million tonnes of low-carbon crude steel.