The proposal to change the company's name was approved by the participants at the Extraordinary General Meeting on September 21. The shareholders voted in favor of the proposed reduction of the nominal value and the name change to Swiss Steel Holding AG.

With the name change, the Swiss Steel Group is closing a piece of tradition and also treading a promising path into the future of steel development. The course for the rebranding has been set in recent weeks and months. The recent agreements of a financial nature have secured the Group's liquidity; the overall financing concept is also in its final stages and the going concern has therefore also been secured.

The name change that has now been decided directly affects all units that previously bore the name Schmolz + Bickenbach. The legal unit in Lucerne also bears a new name as Swiss Steel Holding AG. The business units Ascometal, Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, Finkl Steel, Ugitech S.A., Steeltec and Swiss Steel will all retain their names, but will from now on be referred to as "Swiss Steel Group companies" and will each appear under a new logo.

The rebranding is partly for strategic, but also for practical reasons: The old name was always difficult to pronounce, especially in an international environment. The family of the founders left the shareholder base this year, which also made a name change sensible. Overall, however, the rebranding is also intended to represent the transformation of the Group and send a clear signal of a new beginning.

Clemens Iller, CEO of the Swiss Steel Group, summarizes: "The rebranding to Swiss Steel Group is an important signal for us as we embark on a new, exciting and promising era in our company's history. This requires an independent, easy-to-remember, internationally easy-to-pronounce, credible and evolving brand that our customers can trust. The name change is also a turning point after the grueling events of the past months and years, in which the difficult market situation, a necessary refinancing and, to top it all off, the coronavirus pandemic this year have presented us with immense challenges. We can now look positively to the future under a new name with a fresh logo."