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:''This article is about a company; for the Finnish city, see Outokumpu, Finland.'' Outokumpu is a group of companies headquartered in Espoo, Finland, producing stainless steel, employing about 12,000 employees in more than 30 countries.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.outokumpu.com/en/investors/share-info/fact-sheet/Pages/default.aspx )〕 Outokumpu has a long history as a mining company, and still mines chromium ore in Keminmaa for use as ferrochrome in stainless steel. ==Company history== In 1908, a large deposit of copper ore was discovered in Outokumpu, in Northern Karelia. Outokumpu (OTK) was established to develop the now-exhausted mine. In the 1940s, OTK developed the flash smelting process for smelting copper. From 1986 to 1988 Outokumpu participated in a stainless steel cartel; it was caught in 1990, but not fined. From 1988 to 2001 Outokumpu and the Swedish company Boliden participated in a cartel for copper tubing in the European market. In 2001 ''Avesta Sheffield'' -which was formed from a 1991 merger of ''British Steel Stainless'' with the Swedish firm ''Avesta'' (as in Avesta Municipality)- merged with Outokumpu, forming the third-largest stainless steel producing company in the world at the time. The new company named ''AvestaPolarit'', headquartered in Stockholm, was jointly owned by Outokumpu and the Corus Group of Swedish institutional investors. In September 2001, Outokumpu's plant construction branch Outokumpu Technology bought the German Lurgi Metallurgie in Frankfurt. In December 2003 and September 2004, the EC fined Outokumpu €36,14 million for its copper tubing cartel activity.〔 In 2004, Outokumpu bought the shares owned by Corus, so AvestaPolarit became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Outokumpu Group, delisted from the Helsinki and Stockholm stock exchanges, and only Outokumpu remained, headquartered in Espoo. In 2005, Outokumpu sold its copper branch, Outokumpu Copper, except for the copper tube and brass division, which as of 2014, is known as Luvata International,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Luvata in Russia )〕 and OTK's zinc branch merged with the Swedish company Boliden. At the same time Outokumpu sold all Boliden shares. In June 2006, Outokumpu Technology was spun off as a separate, renamed Outotec in April 2007. On 31 March 2008, the cold rolling mill in Sheffield was closed in a company-wide 10% fixed cost reduction plan. The melt shop in Sheffield continues producing material for long products. In April 2008 OTK exited the copper business by selling its remaining copper tube and brass division to Cupori Group Oy.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Outokumpu's remaining copper tube assets sold to Cupori Group )〕 On 31 January 2012, Outokumpu announced it would buy Inoxum, the stainless steel division of German ThyssenKrupp, for 2.7 billion euros. In November 2012, the European Commission found this acquisition would have created an EU market dominance for cold-rolled stainless steel flat products with Outokumpu market share above 50%. The EC cleared the merger on the condition that the Italian Inoxum subsidiary Acciai Speciali Terni (AST) was excluded from the deal, and OTK acquired Inoxum in December 2012. Through Inoxum, Outokumpu acquired stainless steel mills in China, Mexico, Germany and in Alabama, USA. On 30 November 2013, Outokumpu announced it would sell AST, certain service centers and VDM business to Thyssen Krupp, and in turn, ThyssenKrupp would sell its 29.9% shares in Outokumpu, and sever all other "relevant links" between the two companies. At the same time, on 30 November 2013, Thyssen Krupp announced the same: that it would reacquire AST and other so-called 'remedy assets' as well as VDM (high-performance alloys) from Outokumpu, that it would sell its 29.9% shares in Outokumpu, and sever all other "relevant links" between the two companies. In February 2014, the EC cleared the AST and VDM acquisition by ThyssenKrupp. In July 2014, OTK agreed to settle with Boliden and engineering group IMI, who had sued OTK in 2012 to cover Boliden’s losses from the lawsuit over price-fixing of copper tubing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Outokumpu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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