Metal Exchange Forms New Joint Venture

Metal Exchange Corporation (MEC; St. Louis, MO) announced a newly formed joint venture with Novellini Industries Srl (Mantova, Italy). The newly formed company, called novALmec, presents an impressive aluminum billet supply capability to the European market. Metal Exchange brings their worldwide procurement network in aluminum scrap markets into this venture, along with four decades of expertise from their billet casting facilities in the U.S., strong billet sales and marketing capability. Novellini is contributing their 22,000 metric ton state-of-the-art foundry for the production of secondary aluminum billets, including their upstream scrap processing facility and a solid base load demand. This new venture is expanding the casting facility to 33,000 metric tons, with the added production scheduled to come on stream early 2020.

“The combined capability that these partners bring to novALmec, along with the expanded capacity, provides a strong supply offering to serve our current and potential customers,” said Friedhelm Grobler, the managing director of Metal Exchange International-Zurich. “With this being our first investment in an overseas manufacturing facility, the selection of our partner was crucial,” added Mike Lefton, the chairman and chief executive officer of Metal Exchange. “With both companies being privately held, second generation family-owned businesses with identical shared values of safety, integrity, and respect, it seemed like the perfect fit.”

“This is an important investment to strengthen our European market position and it is part of our overall global strategy,” noted Rick Merluzzi, the president and chief operating officer of Metal Exchange. “This investment, along with the recent opening of our Singapore office and our existing offices in Zurich, Shanghai, and St. Louis, strengthens our global footprint.”

www.metalexchangecorp.com