Server: Microsoft-IIS/3.0 Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 22:32:00 GMT Content-Type: text/html Accept-Ranges: bytes Last-Modified: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 20:07:40 GMT Content-Length: 2935 Alumax Inc. News Release 1/30/96
ALUMAX INC. News Release

ALUMAX SELLS 23 PERCENT INTEREST IN MT. HOLLY ALUMINUM SMELTER FOR $89.3 MILLION

Norcross, Ga., January 30, 1996 -- Alumax Inc. (NYSE: AMX; Toronto: AXI) announced today that its subsidiary, Alumax of South Carolina, Inc., has completed the sale to Glencore Primary Aluminum Company, LLC, a subsidiary of Glencore International AG, of a 23 percent undivided interest in the 182,000-tonnes-per-year Mt. Holly primary aluminum smelter in Goose Creek, South Carolina.

Alumax said Glencore also owns a 26.67 percent interest in the Mt. Holly smelter through its subsidiary, Century Aluminum Company. Following the sale, Alumax of South Carolina will retain a 50.33 percent interest in the plant and will remain the operator of the plant.

Alumax confirmed that it sold the additional interest in the Mt. Holly plant to Glencore for $89.3 million on January 26, 1996. Proceeds from the sale will be applied against the early retirement of a $90.7 million promissory note payable to a Glencore subsidiary in May 1996. The company said the additional interest it sold to Glencore represents approximately 41,700 tonnes of primary aluminum capacity and related working capital.

Alumax also indicated that the sale represents about six percent of the 710,500 tonnes of annual nameplate capacity that it controlled at year-end 1995. It noted that the transaction will generate a pre-tax gain in excess of $75 million in the first quarter of 1996.

As a condition to the sale, the quantity of production from the Mt. Holly plant to which Glencore is entitled under a tolling agreement that terminates in July 1996 has been reduced from 90,719 tonnes per year to 48,980 tonnes on an annualized basis.

Alumax is a world leader in aluminum with assets of more than $3.1 billion and annualized revenues of approximately $2.9 billion.

The company produces and markets primary aluminum ingot, billet and slab and is a major fabricator of value-added aluminum products for the building and construction, transportation, containers and packaging and consumer durables industries.

Alumax employs 14,000 people in more than 100 plants and facilities in the United States, Canada and Western Europe.



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