Wienerberger Shuts Brick Plant, Swaps IR Chief as Stock Sits 1.6% Off Its Yearly Floor

Wienerberger halted brick production at St. Andrä on 14 September and is closing Hartlebury, as its shares sit 1.6% above their 52-week low.

Wienerberger's restructuring of its European manufacturing footprint is gathering pace, with the Austrian building-materials group confirming the end of brick output at its St. Andrä site on 14 September. The plant will not be sold, according to media reports — it stays in company hands and will be repurposed purely as a warehouse and logistics hub, a move management frames as a way of keeping regional distribution intact while trimming capacity in line with weaker construction volumes.

The decision lands alongside turbulence in the UK, where difficult conditions in the brick market have weighed on the business. Hartlebury has been shut or is being prepared for closure, media reports indicate, extending the group's retrenchment beyond Austria.

Not every site is contracting. On 17 September, Wienerberger Italia and Edison Next commissioned a ground-mounted photovoltaic array at Valenza rated at just under 3 megawatts, feeding the plant that produces terracotta roof tiles there — part of a broader push to shave energy costs at facilities that remain in operation.

A Share Price Close to Its Low

The market has given the operational reset a cool reception. The stock slipped 2.6% on Thursday to close at 17.18 euros, and in pre-market trading it was quoted at 17.28 euros. That leaves the shares only 1.6% above their 52-week low, with the year-to-date decline running at 43% to 44%.

Behind the slide sits a combination of pressures: operational strain, structural cuts across the plant network, and turnover in key leadership roles. Cautious commentary from the financial industry has done little to lift sentiment, and institutional investors have been trimming exposure. FMR LLC cut its holding to a voting stake of 6.29%, after crossing below a reporting threshold on 8 September.

The softness in the European construction sector — above all the slump in private residential building — is the immediate driver of that investor caution, feeding directly into the group's order book.

New Leadership at the Top and in IR

Wienerberger has also reshuffled its senior ranks. Roughly a month ago, long-serving CEO Heimo Scheuch stepped down for health reasons, with Gerhard Hanke taking over as interim chief executive.

The capital-markets dialogue is being rebuilt in parallel. Claus Ehrenbeck was appointed Senior Vice President Investor Relations on 15 September, succeeding Therese Jandér and reporting directly to CFO Dagmar Steinert. Ehrenbeck inherits the task of restoring investor confidence during a stretch of persistent market uncertainty — no small assignment with the shares pinned near their yearly trough.