HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Three out of four members of the Executive Board of Hamburg-based copper producer Aurubis are facing premature dismissal. Aurubis announced on Monday evening that representatives of the Supervisory Board were currently in "advanced talks with three Executive Board members about the termination of their Executive Board activities". The share recently lost more than four percent at the end of the MDax.

In addition to Chief Executive Officer Roland Harings, Chief Financial Officer Rainer Verhoeven and Chief Production Officer Heiko Arnold would also lose their posts prematurely. A final decision by the entire Supervisory Board is planned for Tuesday. According to the information, Harings would leave the Management Board on September 30, Verhoeven on June 30 and Arnold on February 29. "Until their premature departure, these Management Board members would continue to perform their respective duties."

With these appointments, the Supervisory Board would be drawing the consequences of the millions in losses incurred by Aurubis following several cases of fraud and theft. The Supervisory Board had commissioned a law firm to investigate the responsibility of the Executive Board in connection with the crimes. The report was expected in mid-January.

Aurubis was the victim of criminals in several cases. At the end of the day, the company reported a metal shortfall of 169 million euros in December when presenting its annual results for 2022/23 (September 30). Due to the losses, earnings before taxes (EBT), the most important internal performance indicator, fell by a good third to 349 million euros - with a drop in turnover of almost eight percent to 17.1 billion euros.

A large-scale fraud was particularly painful for the company. This came to light during regular checks of the metal stock. There were considerable deviations from the target stock as well as deviations in special samples of certain recycling deliveries.

Aurubis assumes that manipulated samples with high levels of valuable metals were submitted, but that the deliveries then contained significantly less valuable metals - which ultimately led to over-invoicing./kf/DP/jha