Brazil: CSN has announced a US$3.4bn debt reduction plan including the sale of its cement production assets, according to Business News Americas. These have a combined capacity of 16.3Mt/yr. It also intends to sell a significant stake in its infrastructure segment, including rail, port and multimodal assets, but will continue to invest in its mining arm CSN Mineração.
According to the chair of the CSN group, Benjamin Steinbruch, the decision to sell some of the conglomerate’s assets comes amid a challenging environment, with high interest rates in Brazil, which put pressure on the company’s indebtedness.
“We believe that all our assets are quite profitable, and although we believe in an improvement in all our lines of business in 2026, we decided that waiting longer for a scenario of interest rate cuts does not make sense,” said Steinbruch. “That is why we embraced this strategy to reduce debt. This sale of assets of US$3.4bn would be equivalent to about half of our debt.”