Usiminas can sell this year's Automotive

Usiminas can sell their production division of truck cabins, automotive, in the first half of this year, amid the company's goal to reduce debt and focus on core operations for the production of steel.
The company closed 2012 with annual losses of $ 531 million, the first in more than a decade, and expects to reduce the level of indebtedness of 4.7 times its cash generation to level below 3 times at the end of 2013.
To do this, between cost reduction measures, the company wants to speed up the sale of non-core assets for steelmaking, including real estate and Automotive Usiminas also.
"Usiminas expects to achieve during the first half of 2013 some sales of non-core assets and non-operating, as well as operational, as is the case of Usiminas Automotive", stated the President of the world's largest producer of flat steel in the country, Julián Eguren.
According to the company's financial Vice President, Ronald Seckelmann, Usiminas has some ongoing negotiations on sale of fixed assets, but avoided mentioning values. The Executive Officer of subsidiaries, Paolo Felice Basseti, added: "the Automotive is a client of Usiminas and is poised and positioned to move up to another level and to do that requires, of course, a company that can help her develop and considers the Automotive as part of their core business."
According to Basseti, the automotive, which was restructured in 2012 amid a tumble of 20 percent in sales of trucks, had margin of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) between 13% and 14% in the last six months. "We feel that for the sector on which Usiminas is acting is reasonable," said Basseti.
In December, Eguren had commented that the Usiminas was open to joint ventures or sale of units and cited the Usiminas mechanics, which acts in segments such as metal structures and production of railway wagons.
Projections
Eguren said that after the injury of 2012 Usiminas remains focused on cost containment amid crisis in the world steel market and who is studying possible deactivation of a continuous casting line in its plant in Cubatão (SP).
The plant has four lines of continuous casting, which produces semi-finished products such as blocks and plates, and had disabled one of them, said Eguren. "We are studying the closure of a new casting line for near future (...) We have eight machines in total (including four mining plant equipment of Ipatinga) and we are concentrating on the machines with maximum production rates of productivity, "he said.
Despite operating with fewer machines, Usiminas ' production in 2012 grew 7 percent, to 7.16 million tons.
Usiminas steel sales estimated between 6 million and 6.5 million tonnes in 2013, falling before the volume of 6.88 million tons last year. The estimate for sales of iron ore this year is 6.5 million tons.