steel trading predecessor coutinho caro & co london ltd founded 1951 london headquarters london england number of locations 145 in 45 countries area served worldwide key people oppenheimer family products semi finished flat long tubes & pipes stainless steel services steel trading shipping and logistics distribution stock holding finance mining and raw materials revenue us 10 billion 2011 number of employees 2000 website stemcor.com stemcor steel marketing corporation is a british steel trading company . the company is based in london england and has 145 business units in 45 countries around the world employing more than 2000 people . stemcor is the world s largest independent steel trader . in 2009 the company was ranked as the third largest privately owned company by turnover in the united kingdom by the sunday times top track 100 list . 1 the company does not own any steel producers and the majority of the shares are held by the oppenheimer family . 2 contents 1 history 2 major acquisitions 3 stemcor s services 4 global locations 5 financial crisis 6 references 7 external links history edit in 1951 mr. herbert coutinho majority shareholder of coutinho caro & co hamburg germany s oldest large trading company established in 1895 opened a subsidiary in london and went into a 50 50 % partnership with hans oppenheimer . the german company was sold to j mcdermott in 1984 and in 1985 hans oppenheimer died passing his 50 % ownership of the london company to his children . in 1987 ralph oppenheimer negotiated his family s purchase of the remaining 50 % of the company . upon completion of the deal in february 1988 the london company name was changed to stemcor an abbreviation of steel marketing corporation . in 2007 stemcor acquired sps which supplies steel plates to the oil and gas industries . 3 presently oppenheimer s son ralph is executive chairman while his daughter margaret hodge member of parliament is a shareholder . 4 julian verden is the newly appointed ceo of stemcor . stemcor trades around 20 million tonnes of steel and steel making raw materials employing 2 000 people in a network of 145 business units in 45 countries across the world . 5 major acquisitions edit steel service center finland belgium portugal aryan mining & trading corporation india barclay and mathieson united kingdom brahmani river pellets india steel plate & sections ltd united kingdom stemcor s services edit steel trading shipping and logistics distribution stock holding finance mining and raw materials global locations edit africa south africa nigeria egypt morocco australasia australia new zealand caribbean jamaica trinidad central and eastern europe hungary macedonia poland russia romania slovakia turkey ukraine south asia india pakistan western europe united kingdom switzerland sweden spain portugal norway italy germany greece finland france belgium austria middle east uae egypt far east singapore china hong kong vietnam japan thailand north and central america usa mexico south america argentina brazil chile financial crisis edit in may 2013 stemcor was faced with a financial hurdle when creditors called in loans totaling more than usd 1b . since then stemcor has been trying to refinance its loans whilst at the same time began a process of restructuring . 1 2 3 as of april 16th 2015 reports were circulating of a potential buy out from apollo group 4 references edit stemcor . the sunday times . retrieved 2010 10 30 . about us . stemcor . retrieved 2010 10 30 . http www.thesundaytimes.co.uk sto business top track 00 article102260.ece harris john 2010 03 13 . griffin vs hodge the battle for barking . the guardian . london . http business.timesonline.co.uk tol business specials top track 100 article6617969.ece external links edit stemcor corporate video retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title stemcor & oldid 727457230 categories companies established in 1951companies based in londonsteel companies of the united kingdomprivate companies limited by guarantee of the united kingdom navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 29 june 2016 at 03 22 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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