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Outokumpu Oyj
Outokumpu makes stainless steel — the shiny, rust-resistant metal used in cars, appliances, buildings, and industrial equipment — and sells it to manufacturers around the world.
Outokumpu is one of Europe's biggest stainless steel makers, and its business is refreshingly easy to picture: it melts scrap metal and raw materials into giant slabs of stainless steel, then rolls those slabs into coils and sheets that other companies turn into car parts, washing machines, bridges, and factory equipment. If a product needs to look good and never rust, there's a decent chance Outokumpu's metal is inside it.
The company's roots are actually in mining — it started in 1910 around a copper deposit in the town of Outokumpu in eastern Finland — but it has long since shed that past and now does one main thing: stainless steel. It is headquartered in Helsinki and runs its biggest mills in Finland, Sweden, and Germany, plus smaller operations in Mexico, the United States, and China. Its customers are manufacturers and distributors who buy steel in bulk, and they choose Outokumpu largely because it is one of the few producers that can guarantee its metal is made with a very low carbon footprint. That matters more and more as carmakers and appliance brands face pressure to clean up their supply chains. The steel business is brutally cyclical, and Outokumpu is no exception. Prices swing with demand from construction and manufacturing, and the company has had some painful years — including a costly bet on a big mill in Calvert, Alabama, which it eventually sold to ArcelorMittal in 2022. More recently, cheap imports from Asia have squeezed European steelmakers, and Outokumpu has responded by focusing on the high end: specialty grades, precision strip, and low-carbon "green" steel that commands a premium. It also owns a large share of the world's chrome mining through its Kemi mine in Finland, which gives it a cost advantage on a key raw material.
In short, Outokumpu is a nuts-and-bolts industrial company with a simple product and a complicated market. It makes money when factories are busy and loses it when they aren't — but its push into low-emission steel and its grip on chrome give it a genuine edge over rivals like Acerinox and the big Chinese producers.
Saved answer · last researched 13 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Outokumpu sells the most stainless steel in Europe, where it holds 28% of the cold-rolled market
- 28% Outokumpu
- 72% Other producers
In Europe, Outokumpu makes roughly 28 out of every 100 tonnes of cold-rolled stainless steel sold, the flat sheet used for sinks, appliances and building panels. That makes it the clear leader in the region that brings in about two-thirds of its sales. In the US it ranks second, with 24%. Source: Outokumpu Oyj, data from 2026
Timeline
Copper on a Finnish Hill
A rich copper ore deposit was found on a hill called Outokumpu in eastern Finland. To dig it up, the company Outokumpu Kopparverk was set up a few years later. That hole in the ground is where the whole story starts.
Outokumpu Becomes a Limited Company
The company became a limited company, with the Finnish state still holding the majority. That new structure gave it room to grow fast beyond mining, into making copper products further down the line. Soon it stood among the five big copper producers in Europe.
Flash Smelting Saves the Smelter
When the smelter moved to Harjavalta, electricity bills became a serious problem. Outokumpu's answer was flash smelting, a clever trick that uses the natural heat from the reaction between iron and copper sulfides to do much of the work, so it needs far less power. It worked so well that it spawned a technology division and was later licensed to companies around the world.
Chromium Found in Kemi
Chromium ore turned up in Kemi, Finland, which handed Outokumpu a key ingredient for stainless steel. Together with its existing nickel production, the company now controlled the raw materials that stainless steel is built from. Feasibility studies for making stainless steel itself began the next year.
First Stainless Steel at Tornio
Outokumpu melted its first batch of stainless steel at the Tornio mill. What made Tornio special was that it was the only stainless steel plant in the world feeding itself from its own chrome mine and ferrochrome operations. It started at 50,000 tonnes a year, which was the company's entire stainless steel capacity at the time.
Outokumpu Goes Public
After a stretch of international expansion and acquisitions, Outokumpu listed its shares on the Helsinki stock exchange. It was now a public company known as Outokumpu Oyj.
AvestaPolarit Deal
Outokumpu combined its stainless steel operations with Avesta Sheffield under the name AvestaPolarit. The deal made it the second largest stainless steel producer in the world. More importantly, it set the company thinking hard about what it wanted to be.
All In on Stainless Steel
Outokumpu decided to bet everything on stainless steel and aim to lead the world in it. Over the following years it sold off its other metals, mining and technology businesses. That choice set the company's direction for decades.
The Inoxum Acquisition
Outokumpu bought Inoxum, the stainless steel arm of ThyssenKrupp, for €2.7 billion. The deal shrank the crowded European market from 21 operators down to essentially three big players, and it handed Outokumpu the widest product range around plus modern mills, including one in the US. It was a huge swing for the top spot.
A New CEO After Losses
The ambitious expansion came with a heavy bill. The company had not posted an annual operating profit since 2007, and after a profit warning investors had had enough. Outokumpu replaced CEO Mika Seitovirta, whose tenure had seen shares fall about 90 percent, with Roeland Baan.
Circle Green Stainless Steel
Outokumpu launched Circle Green, the world's first stainless steel pushed to near-zero emissions, with an emission intensity up to 93% below the global industry average. It came out of a simple question: how low can we push CO2 with the technology we already have?
One Europe Unit
Outokumpu merged its Stainless Europe and Advanced Materials business lines into a single Europe unit under Matthieu Jehl. The move supports its Evolve growth plan for the years ahead, focused on advanced materials and higher-margin alloys, backed by new investment in high-nickel alloys at Avesta and a US pilot plant for low-CO2 ferrochrome and chromium metal.