Nexans completes Reka Cables acquisition to electrify Nordics

• Nexans announces the successful completion of its acquisition of Reka Cables, apremium company active in the manufacturing of high, medium and low voltages cables,for building applications, power distribution networks and onshore wind projects.
• With a turnover of 172 million euros in 2022, this acquisition is fully aligned with theGroup’s strategic ambition to become a pure electrification player committed tocontribute to carbon neutrality by 2030.
• Nexans and Reka Cables will bring together their ideas and expertise across the Nordicregion. The combined business will continue to be at the forefront of sustainability andinnovation, in order to deliver high quality and safe cables to Nordic customers.

Nexans announces today the successful completion of its acquisition of Reka Cables, a premium high, medium and low voltage cables manufacturer in Finland, from Reka Industrial (listed at NASDAQ Helsinki Ltd.) following receipt of regulatory clearance.

This acquisition marks an additional milestone of Nexans’ ambition to become a pure electrification player focusing on the overall value chain.

Reka Cables, headquartered in Hyvinkää, Finland, has been providing high-quality cables to customers in the energy, infrastructure, and building sectors for over 60 years. The company operates three manufacturing plants in Finland which will be complementing Nexans’ existing operations in Sweden and Norway. In 2022, Reka Cables reported current sales of 172 million euros and an EBITDA of 11 million euros. The company, combined with Nexans’ global reach and innovation capabilities, will create significant value for customers in Nordics and beyond. Nexans and Reka Cables share a culture that emphasizes sustainability, and premium customer experience.

As part of the acquisition, Reka Cables will be integrated into Nexans’ Distribution & Usage business group. This operation also opens great perspective for both for Reka Cables and Nexans teams, with even more synergies and development opportunities ahead of them.

• In the context of the overhead power line burial project headed up by Swissgrid, Nexans will be supplying and installing nearly 30 km of 220kV underground cable along the Geneva-Cointrin airport.
• Nexans will also be in charge of dismantling the existing gas-insulated extra high voltage link (GIL), along with a certain number of civil works.
• Nexans’ system will feature a cable temperature monitoring solution.

Swissgrid, the national company in charge of Switzerland’s electricity transmission grid, has chosen Nexans through a bidding process for the project of burying the Very High Voltage (VHV) overhead power lines along the southern side of the Geneva-Cointrin airport. The replacement of the overhead cables with underground cables will free up large tracts of land destined for urban development of the greater Geneva area.

Nexans was chosen for this €25 million turnkey contract for its ability to produce and install very high voltage cables and offer engineering services, as well as for its experience managing complex projects.

The Swissgrid project is part of the “Axe Stratégique Réseau” development programs in the canton of Geneva and the Federal Roads Office’s “Redevelopment of the Grand-Saconnex motorway junction”. In the overhead power line burial project, exceptional by its complex nature, both technical and organizational, Nexans will be in charge of certain engineering services, and of taking down and replacing gas isolated links. In addition to producing and installing nearly 30 km of very high voltage cables between the electrical stations of Foretaille and Renfile, Nexans will also install two 144-strand fibre optic links and embed a temperature monitoring feature in the cable system.

As a leader on the very high voltage market in Switzerland, Nexans has already successfully led several urban projects in Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, Bern, and Zurich. Nexans Switzerland has also been entrusted with complex very high voltage cable connection projects, such as the connection of the Nant de Drance (2018) and Linth-Limmern (2016) pumped storage power plants to the national grid and the underground cable connection of La Bâtiaz – Le Verney (2022).

• Nexans has been awarded the contract for PacWave South, the United States’ first grid-connected wave energy test facility.
• PacWave is a joint venture between the US Department of Energy, the State of Oregon, and Oregon State University and will facilitate the research of innovative renewable technologies.
• RT Casey LLC has selected Nexans for the design, engineering and manufacturing of the 36kV submarine and terrestrial cables that will run across the ocean floor.
• This major project is a significant step in the American sustainable energy transition and will further solidify Nexans’ position as a pure player in sustainable electrification.

Nexans, a global organization and key driver for the world’s transition to a more connected and sustainable future, has been awarded the contract for PacWave South, the United States’ first grid-connected wave energy test facility developed jointly by the US Department of Energy, the State of Oregon, and Oregon State University.

PacWave South consists of four berths that capture the energy generated from the movement of waves and each berth will produce up to 5MW of energy. RT Casey LLC has selected Nexans to provide the four medium voltage AC (MVAC) cables that bring the energy from the berths to shore. The cable lengths total 80km or roughly 20km per cable. This project serves as a pilot to test an alternative form of energy generation that is renewable and minimally invasive to the environment.

Expected to be built and energized by 2024, this project is an important milestone in Nexans’ strategy of becoming an organization dedicated to innovation and sustainable electrification. Nexans’ Generation and Transmission business is now present in all the generation of energy from the ocean including offshore wind, floating wind, floating solar and now wave energy. The Group continues to implement this strategy by working on projects like the PacWave South facility, demonstrating its expertise and strengthening its position as a leader and an electrification pure player.

• Aluminum producer Trimet and Nexans have laid the groundwork for improving the eco-balance of power cables.
• In a joint breakthrough development project, the two companies have developed a material with recycled aluminum content for the production of aluminum rod used in electrical cables.

Trimet and Nexans have developed a new product able to meet the high technical requirements on the mechanical properties and conductivity of the alloy while reducing the product’s carbon footprint. Until now, power cables have been manufactured exclusively on the basis of primary aluminum.

Melting and recycling of aluminum scrap requires only a fraction of the energy needed to produce primary aluminum. However, recycled aluminum contains impurities that adversely affect the material’s specific properties. The collaborative project between Nexans and Trimet aimed to coordinate optimized raw material supply and innovative material development. For example, Nexans has refined the sorting of aluminum scrap at its production sites in Europe through RecyCâbles, a Nexans-Suez joint venture, while gearing its collection to recycling for electrical cables. Trimet has closed the material cycle with its recycling concept and used the scrap obtained to develop a high-quality alloy that meets the full range of quality requirements for mechanical and electrical performance.

Nexans plans to maximize the use of aluminum rod with recycled aluminum content in 2023. This enables the global company to meet its customers’ growing demand for products with a favorable eco-balance. For its part, Trimet is expanding its range of recycled products in the aluminum wire sector. In so doing, the materials specialist is building on its commitment to decarbonize production while making a further contribution to the energy transition.

• Nexans has adopted Authentic Vision Meta-Anchor™ technology to secure Nexans products and supply chains and combat illicit trade.
• State-of-the-art automated mobile authentication enables customers to verify the authenticity of Nexans products prior to the purchase.
• The Meta-Anchor™ technology delivers digital enablement offering enhanced consumer benefits and protects Nexans’ brand value and reputation.
• Nexans and Authentic Vision envision further customer engagement applications made possible by the use of digital identity of physical products.

Whether it is luxury products, consumer goods or industrial tools, a growing wave of counterfeiting is spreading across the globe, and electrical cables are no exception. Nexans and Authentic Vision, a leading provider of mobile authentication solutions, have agreed to enter into a strategic alliance partnership based upon the organizations’ shared philosophy focusing on consumer safety and improving the consumer experience. Authentic Vision’s patented Holographic Fingerprint labels have already been applied to Nexans products packaging in Peru and Lebanon and are under deployment in other countries. The labels make it easy for customers or distributors to scan and verify the authenticity of a product with any smartphone, an approach that is fully in line with Nexans’ strategy of providing value-added services to its customers.

Nexans demonstrates its determination to protect its customers from potentially harmful, substandard products. The most important risk associated with counterfeit cable is cheating on the quantity of copper, which can have dramatic consequences. By reducing the diameter of the copper conductor, counterfeit cables can become abnormally hot when current is passed through them and cause a short-circuit and a fire outbreak.

The Group is now planning to roll out and deploy Authentic Vision’s solution in products around the world to protect the brand and create consumer engagement.

Secure, easy to use and widely beneficial

Authentic Vision’s solution is highly secure, easy to use and instantly provides clear positive/negative verification results. No additional training or specialized equipment is required.

Thomas Weiss points out that his company’s technology is also global and actionable: “Our solution provides customers with proof of authenticity, and in the event a fake attempt occurs, precise geo-location provides brands with actionable data.” In other words, the Meta-Anchor™ technology provides every product with a physically and digitally unique identifier (UID) and tracks counterfeiting attempts, thus providing valuable data for the prosecution of counterfeiters and fraudsters. Only three weeks after the Nexans launch, the first suspicious activities were recorded by the Group.

Environmental, partner and customer benefits

Nexans is engaged and deeply committed to reduce any adverse impact on the environment. Counterfeiters do not apply rules and regulations as Nexans does, to limit the environmental impact. With the Authentic Vision unique holographic label, anyone can differentiate a genuine product that respects standards in force and one that is manufactured in the frame of the Group Sustainability action plan.

Indeed, Nexans and Authentic Vision are joining efforts to develop customer engagement features that will be implemented by regional marketing teams, through the Nexans mobile app, which is used to authenticate the Nexans products.

Nexans announced a 40 million euros investment in its Autun site, the epicentre of a more global strategy of innovation, sustainable development and social commitment.

Present in Autun since 1979, Nexans announced today, in the presence of Jean Mouton, Chairman of Nexans Group, Christopher Guérin, CEO of Nexans and Guillaume Teixeira, Managing Director of Nexans France, the investment of 40 million euros over the next three years in its Autun site, in order to perpetuate the site’s know-how, its industrial competitiveness and employment in France.

This announcement comes at a key moment in the Group’s strategy, reaffirming its commitment to the electrification of the future in France, the cradle of the company for 120 years. Through this investment, Nexans will:

• Accelerate the automation and digitisation of the Autun plant to make it a showcase for the Group’s transformation towards Industry 4.0;
• Reinforce its commitment to circular principles in the use of recycled materials, in particular in connection with its Lens site, the only copper casting facility in France;
• Anticipate changes in fire safety standards for commercial buildings, expected in 2023, by making its Autun plant a European benchmark in fire safety technology.

With demand for electricity expected to increase by 40% by 2040 and limited raw material reserves, Nexans is capitalising on its French territorial roots to build a strong and sustainable ecosystem around three key pillars: innovation, circularity and the use of new industrial technologies. These three pillars are illustrated today in Autun by this major investment of 40 million euros. The aim is to support the production capacity and competitiveness of the site, which is at the forefront of the industry’s new fire safety challenges, and to contribute to its ambition of carbon neutrality.

In concrete terms, the Autun plant will:

• Become a European reference in fire safety technology. This is a major challenge at a time when France, which is exemplary in terms of electrification, is considered to be lagging behind other European markets in terms of fire safety issues in buildings. Nexans is already anticipating the changes in fire safety standards planned for tertiary buildings (ERP) in 2023: from 2025, 30% of electrical installations in buildings will have to include cables that limit the emission of toxic fumes in the event of a fire. Nexans is capitalising on this expected change in standards to make the Autun site a European centre of expertise in PVC and halogen-free compounds;
• Strengthen its ability to supply cables made from recycled materials, in particular by improving the circularity of copper, a primary resource that is becoming increasingly scarce. The vertical integration of Nexans’ value chain in France, from its metallurgical site in Lens, is a decisive asset. It allows Nexans to secure supplies, guarantee the continuity of its activity, and support its customers in reducing their carbon footprint. Through this investment programme, the Autun site also aims to reduce the carbon footprint of its production process by more than 4.2% per year, in particular by modernising its equipment, deploying energy saving solutions and reducing the consumption of fossil fuels on the site.
• To make its Autun site the test-site for an ambitious Industry 4.0 programme, which is intended to be extended to all Nexans sites worldwide from 2023. In addition to the benefits in terms of industrial productivity, Nexans is aiming for a massive improvement in the safety of its teams and industrial processes, in connection with the training of its employees in the field of automation. Industry 4.0 use cases will be developed there, for greater flexibility and agility: performance monitoring, energy consumption monitoring and real-time data to digitise production indicators and routines.

The site, which employs 200 people in the region, is part of Nexans’ network of 14 plants in France, which employs 2,300 people. Since 1979, the Group has invested between 2 and 3 million euros per year in this plant, which also became the first 100% automated logistics platform in France in 1996. A showcase for the Group’s innovation, several building electrification solutions developed in Autun have since been replicated in other markets and have become essential in France. For example, these solutions facilitate the daily work of 30,000 electricians thanks to cables that are easy to unwind, locate and strip: Distingo NX’TAG, Passeo, Easyfil, Mobiway.