Umicore: share hit as CEO resigns

(CercleFinance.com) - On Thursday, Umicore shares posted one of the biggest falls on the STOXX 600 following the announcement of the immediate departure of its CEO, which will also result in a strategic change.


The Belgian materials, chemicals and metallurgy group this morning announced the appointment of Bart Sap as CEO, replacing Mathias Miedreich who has decided to step down by mutual agreement with the supervisory board.

In a press release, Umicore states that one of Bart Sap's main tasks will be to assess the development plans for the battery materials business, including capital expenditure, in view of the slowdown in growth in demand for electric vehicles.

The first results of this assessment will be communicated when the half-year results are announced on 26 July.

The whole question is to what extent the current strategy of the battery materials business can be modified without a rescheduling of capital expenditure, analysts at UBS said.

Umicore has long-term supply contracts with several battery OEMs and producers, and its capacity expansion projects in Europe and Canada are already underway, it points out.

At 11am, the share was down almost 6%, clearly underperforming the BEL 20 index on the Brussels stock exchange, returning to its lowest levels since 2016.


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