Vauramo has been president and CEO of Metso Outotec since it was created on 1 July 2020, following the merger of Metso's global Minerals business with Outotec, a leading provider of process technologies and services for the world's metals and mining, industrial water treatment, alternative energy, and chemical industries. Prior to that he had been president and CEO of Metso since November 2018.
“This is a unique opportunity to lead the integration of the two great companies into Metso Outotec and to develop Metso Outotec to become an industry leader," said Vauramo. "We are in the beginning of our integration journey and Metso Outotec has a lot of potential to increase the effectiveness of its operations and to serve its customers even better and in a more sustainable way."
Mikael Lilius, chair of the board of Metso Outotec, commented: “I´m pleased that president and CEO Pekka Vauramo will continue to lead Metso Outotec during this strategy period, providing continuation to the organisation and the strategy implementation as well as securing that the well-started integration process will be finalised successfully."
Confirmation that Vauramo would continue in his role came as Metso Outotec published its interim financial review for January-September 2020.
Orders received for the nine month period were €2,926m (compared with €3,428m for January-September 2019). The comparative figures for January-September 2019 are a combination of Metso Minerals carve-out information and Outotec information, according to the Metso Outotec segment structure.
Sales for January-September 2020 totalled €3,011m (€3,054m), and adjusted EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation) was €344m, or 11.4% (€378m or 12.4%). EBIT was €206m, or 6.9% of sales (€327m or 10.7%). Earnings per share totalled €0.15 and cash flow from operations was €410m.
Orders received for for the third quarter of 2020 were €836m (compared with €1,169m in Q3 2019). Sales totalled €985m (€1,073m), while adjusted EBITA was €109m, or 11.1% of sales (€153m or 14.3%). EBIT totalled €47m, or 4.8% of sales (€126m or 11.7%), and earnings per share were €0.03.
Metso Outotec says the situation was largely unchanged in Q3, compared to the end of the second quarter, with the most significant impacts relating to restrictions on workforce mobility and limited access to customer sites. The company says its own operations have been running with additional health and safety measures and without major disruptions since early June.
The aggregates business, which faced the most rapid and negative impacts during the second quarter, has seen demand stabilise to the end of June levels of about 75-80% of normal, while continuing to see further strong market growth in China.
In the minerals and metals markets, decision-making related to bigger investment projects continues to be slow and hampered by mobility restrictions. The services business continues to be affected by limited access to planning, preparing and carrying out maintenance and modernisation work at customer sites. The company says the demand for spare parts and consumables has been good, thanks to healthy utilisation rates at mines.
Vauramo commented on the company's performance: "July 1 marked Day 1 for the new Metso Outotec, and we have since proceeded quickly with the integration and realisation of the first synergies."
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic continued to have an impact on the company's end markets during the third quarter. "The most significant impacts resulted from the limited access to customer sites and the slow decision-making related to new project and modernisation orders and non-critical services," said Vauramo. "These affected our order and sales volumes. At the same time, our performance was supported by the McCloskey acquisition, which we can be very pleased about overall."
