South Africa’s aluminium supplier Hulamin has slipped into the red, battered by a stronger-than-expected rand, surging energy costs, and a flood of cheaper imports squeezing margins. Adding to the blow, the company revealed plans to offload its struggling extrusions division, which racked up a R66.8 million (USD 3.67 million) loss in the first half of 2025.
The shutdown strategy limited Hulamin’s ability to pass rising costs on to customers, forcing the company to build up a stockpile of finished goods to keep the market supplied. CEO Mark Gounder said this was the company’s top priority in the first half of the year managing the planned downtime without severely denting profitability.
Even so, Hulamin reported a loss of 8 cents per share for the first half of 2025, with the bulk of the hit coming from its loss-making extrusions unit, which contributed R66.8 million (USD 3.83 million). The group’s overall loss came in at R24 million (USD 1.36 million). By contrast, continuing operations showed resilience, with revenue rising 8 per cent year-on-year to R7.1 billion (USD 404.7 million).
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“Following a strategic review of the extrusions segment, we have decided to exit this business and aim to do so by the end of 2025,” Gounder said.
Hulamin’s gains from higher volumes and an improved sales mix were quickly erased by headwinds on multiple fronts a stronger rand, soaring energy costs, and fierce pricing pressure in the local can-end market. The currency shift alone proved punishing, with the rand strengthening R0.34 against the dollar year-on-year, sharply eroding the competitiveness of Hulamin’s aluminium exports. The fallout was stark: profits from continuing operations plunged from R276.8 million (USD 15.8 million) to just R43 million (USD 2.45 million).
The company has entered negotiations to dispose of its extrusions business, as first announced on SENS on 18 August 2025. Meanwhile, operations at its containers division were halted on 6 June 2025, with the wind-down and sale of operating assets now underway.
“We continued to advance our market-driven strategic capital plan, reaching a major milestone with the successful completion and commissioning of the final phase of our wide canbody expansion project aimed at displacing imports. Our next focus is the qualification and commercial readiness of our wide-width products, targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” added Gounder.
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