Earnings situation within the Group

1) In regard of the participation in Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann
2) EBIT = EBT plus interest paid (excluding interest element in allocations to pension provisions); EBITDA = EBIT plus depreciation and amortization
3) EBIT in relation to the total of shareholders' equity (without calculation of accrued and deferred taxes), tax provisions, interest-bearing liabilities (excluding pension provisions) and liabilities from financial leasing, forfaiting and asset-backed securitization
4) Annualized
5) Excluding financial assets
6) Including investments, e.g.securities and structured investments

Since the general economic conditions started to brighten over the course of the first half year 2009, the Salzgitter Group achieved a notable improvement in results in the third quarter. The impact of the global financial crisis, however, was still evident so that the Group’s broad and equally sound business base has proven extremely advantageous against this backdrop. Positive contributions of the Tubes Division, the Aurubis participation and financial investments were unable to compensate for the results of the Steel, Trading and Technology divisions that were particularly hard hit. The extensive program of short-term cost-cutting measures had a notably easing effect.

Consolidated external sales dropped 38 % to € 5,960.3 million (first nine months of 2008: € 9,638.7 million) in the first three quarters and the pre-tax loss came to € 261.3 million (first nine months of 2008: € +1,013.9 million), with a modest uptrend in the summer quarter.

In interpreting the third-quarter pre-tax result (€ -66.1 million), the fact that a number of larger plant in the Steel and Tubes divisions as well were idled for a period of several weeks for planned maintenance and investment measures, along with lower capacity utilization due to market conditions, must be taken into account.

From its first-time consolidation in January 2009, the 23 % stake in the copper producer Aurubis AG, a company consolidated at equity, contributed a gratifying € 38.7 million in profit to the consolidated after-tax result of € -232.1 million (first nine months of 2008: € +689.0 million). This brings the loss per share to € 4.33 (first nine months of 2008: € +12.30).