ATI ends joint venture in Russia

Specialty steelmaker ATI is pulling out of its joint venture with a Russian-based metal production and titanium-magnesium operation, no later than the end of the year.

The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker notified the Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing Wednesday that it is expecting to wind up the joint venture with VSMPO-AVISMA “expeditiously.”

The joint venture, called Uniti LLC, primarily focused on selling titanium products to industrial markets such as power generation, chemical and petroleum processing, automotive, and transportation. The operation in Russia does not serve the aerospace, defense or medical markets, ATI said in its statement.

ATI’s termination of the Russian agreement will not impact ATI employees or operations in the Alle-Kiski Valley, said Natalie Gillespie, ATI spokeswoman.

ATI had a collaboration of almost 20 years with the Russian manufacturing association “in serving shared customers,” said Kevin Kramer, board member of the joint venture and ATI’s chief commercial and marketing officer.

Uniti, in which ATI owns a 50% interest, generated $45.8 million in sales in 2021, $36.7 million in 2020 and $31.3 million in 2019, according to the ATI annual report filed with the SEC on Feb. 25.

Gillespie declined to release additional details on the Russian agreement.

ATI is the latest major U.S. firm to either suspend operations in Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, or terminate business in Russia.

According to Forbes, the dozens of major corporations to either permanently or temporarily cut ties with Russia include Goldman Sachs, Disney, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Sony, 3M, Amazon, IBM, Mastercard, Visa and American Express.