ArcelorMittal posts new loss

• Company blames Eskom and Transnet for high costs

ArcelorMittal blamed Eskom and Transnet for unsustainable service costs as it posted another loss for the interim period to June.

ArcelorMittal SA blamed Eskom and Transnet for unsustainable service costs as it posted another loss on Thursday for the interim period to June 2017.

The company said Eskom’s winter tariffs for its plants were 183% higher than electricity costs for the next most expensive plant in the global ArcelorMittal group. Meanwhile, Transnet tariffs — including for ports — were extremely high.

“For the past five years, we have paid Transnet a tariff that is 50% more than the PPI [producer price index],” ArcelorMittal SA CEO Wim de Klerk said.

He also said Eskom was not prepared to go to the National Energy Regulator (Nersa) and fight on behalf of its big clients. Instead, the utility told ArcelorMittal SA to go to Nersa itself.

He said that ArcelorMittal SA was spending an “inordinate amount of time” assisting downstream steel producers in SA, who faced a flood of imports of Chinese finished steel products.

Meanwhile, there was huge domestic production overcapacity in South African steel markets. In addition, the average cost of the raw materials basket comprising hard coking coal, iron ore and scrap metal had shot up 38% as rand strength had cost R1.5bn from the same period previously. This helped negate average domestic sales price increases of 23% and 8% for exports in the period.

An agreement with the government to limit product prices and an inability easily to streamline 8,670 full-time employees without state buy-in also hampered the steel producer, even as revenue rose 12.6% to R19.1bn in the interim period. The metals and engineering sector made up two-thirds of the PPI for intermediate manufactured goods.

Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa economist Marique Kruger said SA’s manufacturers had little room to pass on cost increases in a weak economy.

Statistics SA’s June PPI for intermediate goods recorded a 2.1% increase between June 2016 and June 2017, down from the 3.1% year-on-year increase in May.

“This reflects a fourth consecutive year-on-year decline,” Kruger said. “PPI measures factory gate prices and therefore is a good proxy for selling price inflation in the metals and engineering sector.”

Some of ArcelorMittal SA’s woes are a function of a complex global industry that is being flooded with cheap Chinese imports. But economic and policy turmoil in SA also helped the group to a total comprehensive loss of R2.46bn in the period.

The firm has promised the government it will invest R4.6bn in a modern plant and machinery over the next five years, as production outages across its facilities and a fire cut 150,000 tonnes of steel output.

But ArcelorMittal SA said that despite improvements in global steel demand and steel prices, a lack of investment — especially in SA’s construction and manufacturing sectors — and continued cheap imports of primary and finished steel products were killing operations.

This comes ahead of the imposition by the government of further tariff safeguard measures of 12% on top of 10% standard

FOR FIVE YEARS, WE HAVE PAID TRANSNET A TARIFF 50% MORE THAN THE PRODUCER PRICE INDEX

tariff measures.

The interim loss came after attributable losses totalling R13.3bn for the 2016 and 2015 financial years.

The group also said that more competitors had sprung up in the country as a result of the government’s black industrialist programme, causing it to lose market share.

De Klerk said such producers now made an extra 600,000-800,00 tonnes per annum of steel products.

Voting patterns at annual general meetings can tell you a lot about what shareholders are thinking of the way management is running their company, although it’s not always clear exactly what they’re thinking. Consider the recent Accelerate meeting, attended by a remarkable 92.7% of shareholders. The average is closer to 70%, but Accelerate’s turnout is in line with the fact that the company is relatively new to the JSE. It was listed in December 2013 at R4.94 and is probably still quite tightly held.

In what is possibly a record, resolutions received 100% support, including the reappointment of EY as auditors.

Almost amazing is that the nonbinding advisory vote on the remuneration report received just less than 60% support. The resolution to place unissued shares under the control of the directors that came immediately after the remuneration vote, also received just less than 60%.

It was as though a large shareholder had doublepressed the no button. After that, support was back into the 90s, with the exception of the resolution to allow the directors to allot and issue shares to company executives.

Given the group’s recent disappointing performance and management’s own downbeat forecast for the next two years, the vote against the remuneration policy was to be expected.

It is not just in SA where it is struggling, largely because of challenges at the Fourways Mall flagship asset. Accelerate’s European assets are also underperforming. Given the circumstances, it is reasonable for shareholders to want to ensure the board does not dish out shares to a disappointing management team.

The share price is down 20% on the year and is up only 4% from listing. A rcelorMittal SA’s woes continue despite a raft of measures being put in place to stave off a possible big collapse in the primary steel industry. It appears the government will soon add 12% extra safeguard measures to a 10% general tariff on steel imports, at the same time that it has designated local steel products for state infrastructure projects.

But whether these measures will be enough to prevent a catastrophe is unclear. Downstream steel companies have been closing and shedding thousands of jobs, while little is being spent on state works.

The designation of steel products are likely to require a lot of policing.

Meanwhile, the crisis in the mining sector will ensure that steel demand remains tepid.

But there are a few upsides to the temblors hitting the country’s largest steel producer. It will be forced to become more competitive as newly empowered smaller steel makers steal more of its market share.

Meanwhile, there is talk that the formerly defunct Cape Town Iron and Steel Works, once part of Murray & Roberts, will rise from the ashes in September.

In defence, ArcelorMittal SA plans to send considerably more product into Africa’s overland steel markets, which absorb more than 900,000 tonnes a year. The steel maker says it is “logical” that it increases its 26% share of this overall market.

However, dealing with Eskom and Transnet has been a “bit of a nightmare”, CEO Wim de Klerk says.

The parastatals’ prices are high and service is shoddy, which affects competitiveness.