Outokumpu’s president and chief executive officer is resigning this spring to join Haldor Topsoe A/S, a Danish catalysis company.
Roeland Baan will be leaving the Finnish stainless steel producer—Europe’s largest—officially on May 15. No replacement has been found yet. In a statement, Baan lauded the company, for which he’s been chief executive officer since 2016, for its healthy balance sheet.
However, 2019 was a difficult year for the Outokumpu, as it was for the steel industry in general. The company’s stainless steel deliveries declined by 10pc from the year before, totaling 2.428mn mt, and it also recorded a 6.8pc sales decrease, which Bann attributed to unfairly priced imports and unprecedented price pressure caused by US tariffs.