Afarak CEO’s Controlled Company Sells a Significant Portion of Its Holding
12.6.2023 12.48 • Arvopaperi •
GK Consulting, a company controlled by Afarak’s CEO, has sold one million Afarak shares.
GK Consulting S.A.R.L, a company controlled by Afarak CEO Guy Konsbruck, has sold one million Afarak shares for a total of approximately 507,000 euros.
The shares were sold on June 7 and June 8. The average price per share of the transactions was approximately 0.53 euros.
Guy Konsbruck is also a member of Afarak’s board of directors.
Where is the special audit? It’s been four, yes four years already — apparently some kind of record? Apparently, these audits don’t need to be carried out in Finland, as an example to other companies?
It’s strange that the company in question is listed on two exchanges (Helsinki + London); apparently, one can operate like this without any tangible consequences, and the exchange’s rules of the game don’t matter in terms of the outcome? Are laws only for reliable and law-abiding owners?
Quite unbelievable behavior. What does the FIN-FSA (Fiva) say, and what about the exchange leaders, such as Henrik Husman (CEO of Nasdaq Helsinki)?
It would also be meaningful to hear the views of others, such as Victor Snellman, CEO of the Finnish Shareholders’ Federation (Suomen Osakesäästäjät). What do you think?
Earnings weakened understandably as material prices have come down, otherwise okay.
The market apparently didn’t like it, well, that’s no longer a surprise.
No surprise - same crew, same old story. By the way, where is the notice of the general meeting that the CEO mentioned (TalSa article 1/24)?
CHANGE IN THE NUMBER OF AFARAK GROUP SE’S TREASURY SHARES
Stock Exchange Release
Based on the share issue authorization granted by the Company’s Annual General Meeting held on 21 June 2023, the Company’s Board of Directors has carried out a directed share issue without payment. In accordance with the share issue, 500,000 treasury shares (”Shares”) held by the Company have now been transferred to CEO Guy Konsbruck. The shares form part of the remuneration under the CEO’s service contract.
Following the execution of the share issue, Afarak holds 6,041,514 treasury shares, representing approximately 2.26 percent of the Company’s total shares and votes.
“According to Konsbruck, who started as Afarak’s CEO in 2017, the results of the special audit will be released soon. The company expects to hold an extraordinary general meeting regarding it during January–March.”
”Konsbruck sees the company’s future as bright: 2022 was historically strong and good figures are also being reported for last year. The company has made a successful turnaround against all expectations.”
This thread has been quiet for a long time, but now here is an excellent tweet thread from @Iikka about this company.
Afarak is an extremely interesting company due to its strong earnings performance and its ownership base, which is why the company is definitely worth following.
Based on current information, I see the expected return as positive.
Here is Salkunrakentaja’s article on Afarak; the piece takes a few minutes to read.
Afarak continues to improve productivity and efficiency to better withstand unfavorable market conditions.
The company expects margin pressure to continue at least during the first half of the current year due to the weak state of the stainless steel industry, mainly in Europe.
Afarak’s Board of Directors is proposing a new dividend policy to the Annual General Meeting. In the future, the Group will review its distributions to shareholders through either capital repayment or dividends. The goal is for each financial year’s dividend ratio to be at least 10 (ten) percent of the Afarak Group’s full-year EBITDA.
The special audit statement dated March 18, 2024, was prepared by Jussi Savio, Authorized Public Accountant (KHT). The conclusions of the audit state:
- Overall, we have not observed such concrete matters, the suspicions regarding which led to the special audit being ordered. - Revenue generated by ore sales is low, particularly relative to the Group’s total revenue. - No ore has been sold to Hino Resources Co. Ltd. - No ore has been sold to parties definitely known or suspected to be related parties of Danko Koncar. Based on the audit, however, it is not possible to state unequivocally which companies are definitely Danko Koncar’s related party companies. - The audit did not reveal sales where ore was sold at a price lower than the world market price. In our opinion, it is not possible to perform such a review and reach a conclusion completely unequivocally, due to, among other things, potential freight costs affecting the pricing of the ore and their impact on the sales price. - The audit did not reveal unjustified reclamation payments made by ATL to suspected related parties of Danko Koncar or to other companies. - During the 2017 financial year, a total of approximately EUR 11 million was paid by ATL to related parties through various offsetting procedures. The company has provided us with explanations regarding the basis and background of these payments, which are described in the audit statement starting on page 32. Despite these explanations, in our opinion, we did not gain full clarity as to why such offsetting procedures were carried out. However, we did not observe any misconduct in these payments.
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