With this listing Latibex furthers its commitment to offering the European investor the opportunity to diversify their portfolios of Latin American stocks. Latibex, the only international market exclusively for Latin American stocks already lists companies from the following sectors: power, financial, paper and pulp, mining, telecommunications, Internet and investment firms. Gerdau's listing will included the iron and steel sector.
After Gerdau's listing, Latibex will comprise 26 stocks from 6 Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico), thus consolidating itself as the third market for Latin American stocks.
Gerdau's core business is the manufacturing of steel and distribution of iron and steel products. With an installed capacity of 14 million tons of gross steel, the company ranks as the country's third biggest steel manufacturer. The company's sales networth comprises 70 centres, 3 operations devoted to flat steel and 25 steel cutting and folding centres meant for the construction of buildings. Gerdau ranks as the world's fifteenth steel manufacturer and is the best positioned Brazilian company in this respect.
Gerdau is the biggest manufacturer of long pieces of steel in Latin America and has a strong hold on the American and Canadian market. The company operates 10 plants in Brazil and 13 in Uruguay, Chile, Canada and the United States. Gerdau has also a 38.18% stake in SIPAR aceros de Argentina. The company has recently increased its interest in Ançominas, from 54% to 79% and also merged its operations in North America (Ameristeel, Courtice y MRM) with Co-Steel, a Canadian iron and steel manufacturer in which Gerdau already had a 67 % stake.
Gerdau's management team will present the company to investors, analysts and the media on November 28 at the Madrid Stock Exchange. The company's trading code on Latibex will be XGGB and its stocks' trade unit will be 1,000 shares. The company's shares currently trade on the Bolsa de Valores de Sao Paulo (BOVESPA) and the New York Stock Exchange, through ADRs (American Depositary Receipts).
