ALUSUISSE SEES POSSIBLE BREAK-EVEN IN 1987

  Schweizerische Aluminimum AG &lt;ALUZ.Z>
  (Alusuisse) may be able to break even this year after cleansing
  its balance sheet for 1986, chief executive Hans Jucker said.
      "The threshold of profitability has returned to the
  foreseeable future," he said. "We expect already in 1987
  approximately to break even. That presupposes, however, that
  our industrial environment does not worsen."
      He said Alusuisse would no longer face the burden of past
  losses.
      Alusuisse made a net loss of 688 mln Swiss francs in 1986
  after a restated 756 mln loss in 1985.
      Gross sales were 5.93 billion francs after 8.51 billion and
  net turnover 5.65 billion after 8.00 billion.
      Alusuisse had originally reported a 692 mln francs loss for
  1985.
      But Jucker and Finance Director Hermann Haerri told a news
  conference the new management installed a year ago had decided
  to restate the previous five years' accounts to eliminate
  rights on Australian bauxite previously in the books as an
  asset.
      Together with other one-off charges, Alusuisse took an
  gross extraordinary charge in 1986 of 698 mln francs, up from
  472 mln in 1985.
      It also had 106 mln extraordinary income in 1986 remaining,
  after provisions, from the sale of its Maremont Corp subsidiary
  in the United States. There were no extraordinary gains in
  1985.
      Jucker said the losses, plus those carried forward from
  1985, had wiped out the company's remaining reserves and
  exceeded legally allowed levels, forcing Alusuisse to adopt a
  50 pct capital cut, to be approved by shareholders on April 22.
      Jucker said he knew shareholders would find this "radical
  elimination of the mortgages of the past" painful, but said the
  foundation had been laid for a successful new company strategy.
      Haerri said despite the losses, the company's liquidity was
  strong. Bank debt had been cut by about one-third to 2.56
  billion francs against the end-1985 level of 3.85 billion.
      Cash flow improved substantially to 323 mln francs from 111
  mln and represented 5.7 pct of turnover against a mere 1.4 pct
  in 1985.
      In addition, to reassure other creditors, Alusuisse had
  arranged with three major Swiss banks -- Union Bank of
  Switzerland &lt;SBGZ.Z>, Swiss Bank Corp &lt;SBVZ.Z> and Credit
  Suisse &lt;CRSZ.Z>, to convert 300 mln francs of credits into a
  subordinated loan.
      The main sources of losses in 1986 were book losses and not
  cash losses, Haerri said. Existing credit lines were used only
  to a small extent, and the parent company had been granted a
  new credit line of 200 mln francs from a consortium of Swiss
  banks that would cover most of the loans falling due in 1987.
      Haerri said the company had been criticized for maintaining
  bauxite rights as an asset, and so had restated the accounts.
      That left the 1985 account with a 756 mln franc loss
  instead of 692 mln, 1984 with a 68 mln profit instead of 169
  mln, 1983 with a 217 mln loss instead of 82 mln and 1982 with a
  479 mln loss instead of 179 mln.
      The new accounts show 1985 with shareholders' equity of
  1.15 billion francs instead of 1.75 billion, and similar
  alternations were made for previous years.
      After 1986 losses, shareholder's equity stood at only 895
  mln francs.
  

