
Romanian aluminium company Alro SA (Alro Slatina) said on Wednesday that it has received a loan of €167 million from Romania’s EXIM Bank to cover the plant’s ongoing operations.
Local media said the firm made the announcement in a filing to the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
Alro CEO Gheorghe Dobra said in the announcement that he expects the firm to make strides in revenue in the near future.
“We have remained faithful to our strategy and we focused on investments in innovation and in the latest production technologies and we continued to pursue partnerships with organisations that support responsible and sustainable business development.”
Alro has struggled over the past several months due to coronavirus-initiated changes in two of its key sectors, namely automotive and aerospace. Along with the significant drop in aluminium prices last year, the difficulties teamed up to take a significant impact upon the firm’s bottom line.
Alro has taken several steps to cut costs and improve purchasing and sales, but the modifications have not proven sufficient to turn the firm’s finances around and go from red to black.
Alro was founded in 1963 and is based in Slatina, Romania. The firm, a subsidiary of Vimetco N.V., is managed by Russian investor Vitaliy Machitski and has an installed capacity of 265,000 metric tons per year, making it one of the largest producers in Central and Eastern Europe outside of Russia and Scandinavia. It also produces 35 thousand metric tons per annum of recycled aluminium and churns out 335 thousand metric tons per annum of cast aluminium.