Nexans’ first-quarter sales fell slightly, mainly due to the drop in the price of raw materials such as aluminum and copper, which are used to manufacture the electrical cables sold by the group.
The world’s second-largest cable company reported first-quarter revenues of €2.03 billion, down 1.4% compared with the first three months of 2022. “Copper and aluminum prices in the first quarter of 2023 were lower than in the first three months of 2022,” the group recalled.
But excluding the price effect, taking into account “standard” prices, at 5,000 euros per ton of copper and 1,200 euros per ton of aluminum for comparison purposes, “standard” sales rose by 3.1% to 1.67 billion euros, compared with 1.62 billion last year. “In fact, variations in metal prices on the markets have no influence on the group’s performance, since we pass on the real value of prices to our customers,” says the group, which prefers to communicate on standard sales rather than on those reflecting variations in metal prices.
In the first quarter, Nexans accelerated its development to become a “pure player” in electrification, a strategic refocusing on electrical cable announced since 2021, which is gradually leading it to abandon the cable business related to telephony and data. In particular, the group announced its intention to acquire Reka Cables, a Finnish company.
In addition, it has “recently” entered into exclusive negotiations with a Belgium-based private equity fund, Syntagma Capital, for the sale of its Telecom Systems business (about 180 million euros in revenues by 2022), a statement said. “This proposed transaction, once completed, will mark Nexans’ exit from the Telecom Infrastructure and Cables and LAN Systems businesses,” the group said.
The special telecommunications business will now be part of the power generation and transmission division, as more and more submarine high-voltage projects require telecom fibers embedded in power transmission cables, the group said, adding that it will no longer report on the telecom and data segment.
