Epiroc starts trading
19 June 2018
Eprioc has started trading on Nasdaq Stockholm in Sweden, with an estimated market cap of US$14 billion (€12.12 billion) according to analysts.
This marks the start of Epiroc as a fully independent company serving customers in the mining, infrastructure and natural resources industries in more than 150 countries, following its separation from Atlas Copco. This comes at a time when the mining industry is showing robust growth.
It was decided at Atlas Copco’s annual general meeting in April that all shares of Epiroc would be distributed to the shareholders of Atlas Copco. As a result, Atlas Copco shareholders have received one Epiroc share for each of their Atlas Copco shares. The total number of outstanding shares in Epiroc is 1,213,738,703.
Per Lindberg, Epiroc’s president and CEO, said, “We are proud of our long and productive heritage in the Atlas Copco group, and at the same time we look forward to serving our customers in an even more focused way and to delivering customer and shareholder value.”
It has been reported that Epiroc will be seeking acquisitions, looking at deals to gain digital expertise for connecting fleets, boost its services arm and possibly its consumables division for parts.
Lindberg said, “We will need to make acquisitions over the longer period to support our growth strategy. It will be a combination of relatively small and some bigger deals.”
For the first quarter of 2018, Atlas Copco reported that orders received by Epiroc had increased by 18% year-on-year, from SEK8.52 billion (€7.38 billion) in the first quarter of 2017 to SEK10.04 billion (€8.7 billion) in the equivalent period this year.
Revenues were also up 11% on the previous year, reaching SEK8.23 billion (€7.13 billion) in the first quarter of 2018.
Despite the one-time cost of splitting from Atlas Copco, operating profit grew by 7%, to SEK1.52 billion (€1.32 billion) in the first quarter of 2018.
Strong demand for the company’s equipment was said to be supported by mining customers’ expansion investments.
