About the company Mechel
Security pageMechel is a mining and steel group that combines coking coal mining with steel production. The market knows the company not only for its products: its history is inseparable from the history of the large debt accumulated in the years of expansion. Its ordinary and preferred shares trade under the tickers MTLR and MTLRP.
What the company does
The pairing of coal and steel here is no accident: coking coal is the raw material for smelting pig iron, and a group with its own coal depends less on its price. But this pairing has a second side as well: coking coal is the most volatile of industrial commodities, and when world prices for it fall, the mining segment loses profit quickly.
The steel segment produces rolled products and specialty steels for machine building; its result is determined by domestic demand.
The key feature of the company is its debt. It was taken on during the period of asset purchases and has shaped the company's financial life ever since: a significant part of operating profit goes to servicing interest, and so this group's sensitivity to the key rate is higher than that of most commodity companies.
Business lines
Mining segment
Coking and thermal coal, iron ore concentrate.
Steel segment
Rolled products, specialty steels and wire products for machine building and construction.
Power segment
Generation that serves primarily the group's own production facilities.
History
- 2003The group is created, bringing together coal and steel assets.
- 2004Listing of shares on a US stock exchange.
- 2008–2014Expansion and asset purchases give way to a debt crisis: servicing the loans becomes the main task.
- 2020-еDebt restructuring and the sale of some assets in order to reduce debt.
Business review
Strengths and weaknesses describe the business itself. Opportunities and threats describe what may happen around it.
Strengths
- High-quality reserves of coking coal, which is in demand among steelmakers.
- A closed chain from coal to finished rolled products.
Weaknesses
- The debt burden is the defining factor: a significant part of operating profit goes to interest.
- Worn-out capacity and limited ability to invest in renewal.
- Dividends on ordinary shares are practically absent.
- A double dependence — on both the price of coal and the price of steel.
Opportunities
- Its own coal reduces the steel segment's dependence on raw material prices.
- A rise in world coking coal prices quickly improves the result of the mining segment.
- A cut in the key rate noticeably reduces the cost of servicing the debt.
- Domestic demand for specialty steels is supported by machine building.
Threats
- The debt burden eats up a significant part of operating profit and makes the company extremely sensitive to the rate.
- Coking coal is one of the most volatile industrial commodities.
- Export restrictions and logistics make it harder to ship coal out.
- The wear of part of the production assets requires investment that competes with debt repayment.
Frequently asked questions
What does Mechel do?
The group mines coking and thermal coal and iron ore, and also produces steel, rolled products and wire products. The coal goes both to its own steelmaking and for sale.
Why does a steel company need its own coal?
Coking coal is the raw material for smelting pig iron and one of the main items in the cost of steel. A company with its own coal suffers less when it becomes more expensive, but feels a fall in its price more strongly in the mining segment.
Why does Mechel have such a large debt?
It was accumulated during the period of active asset purchases before the crisis of 2008 and has been restructured several times since then. Servicing the interest takes a substantial part of operating profit, which makes the company's result especially sensitive to the level of interest rates.
Issuer profile
What the company does
The company is classified under the «Metals & mining» sector, using the taxonomy we apply when comparing securities with one another.
The same sector holds 27 issuers on the platform, and their figures are computed by one method — so this company's revenue, profit and leverage can be compared with them directly.
The company is registered in Russia and identified in regulatory disclosure by tax number 7703370008. That number locates its statements in state registries regardless of how its name is spelled — and the spelling differs even between official documents.
Listed securities
The issuer has 2 securities listed: 2 share classes. All are shown on this page, including those trading in different modes and different currencies.
Across Moscow Exchange quotation list levels the securities split as follows: 2 at level 1. The level reflects how strict the disclosure, turnover and track-record requirements the issue meets are — not how attractive the investment is.
Dividend history
Between 2015 and 2021 the issuer made 7 payouts whose record date has already passed. A board recommendation or a forecast does not enter this history, because no money has been paid on them yet.
The most recent payout was 1.17 ₽ per security with a record date of 13 July 2021. That is the amount before tax: the broker withholds it on crediting, so less arrives in the account.
Financial statements
The most recent annual report we hold is for 2025 under IFRS. The standard is named for a reason: IFRS and RAS compute the same quantities by different rules, disagree by design and are never averaged.
Revenue for 2025 was 287.00B ₽.
That is 25.9 % less than in 2024, when revenue was 387.50B ₽. The comparison stays within one reporting standard — otherwise the decline could turn out to be a change of accounting rules and nothing more.
2025 closed with a loss of −78.60B ₽.
Equity stands at −195.50B ₽ against total assets of 207.60B ₽. The difference between the two is the company's liabilities, and the larger it is relative to equity, the more the business depends on borrowed money.
This section is assembled from our own data on the company's securities, dividends and financial statements. It is a description, not a recommendation.