Furukawa-Sky Aluminum Establishes Sales JV in Greece

Furukawa-Sky Aluminum announced on Thursday the firm established a joint venture with Elvar S.A., Greek manufacturer of flat rolled aluminium products, to sell aluminium plate applied to automotive heat exchanger. Elvar belongs to Greek Viohalco Group which is the largest metal business group in the Balkan Peninsula. The JV is expected to sell 12,000 tonnes of aluminium plate per year and to post 40 million euros or 6 billion yen of annual sales in 2010.

Furukawa-Sky Aluminum establishes an overseas site for aluminium plate business and in European area for the first time, while the firm currently holds aluminium extrusion business sites in Indonesia and China and a precision extrusion business site in Vietnam.

The new JV will be located in Elvar’s Oinofyta plant in an Athens suburb. The capital is 1.8 billion euros, fifty-fifty invested by Furukawa-Sky Aluminum and Elvar. The JV will start operation in January 2007 after completion of company registration. The sales products will be manufactured by Elvar with technical support from Furukawa-Sky Aluminum. The parent companies plan to supply bearing materials at the beginning and to add high-value-added products such as clad materials in the future.