Recycling Mogul To Invest Heavily in Copper

Online, December 21, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Frederick Von Strasser, the newly appointed chairman of recycling conglomerate Central European Waste Management, with facilities throughout Central Europe, announced the company's plans to invest more than two-hundred million Euros in base metals, especially copper. This follows a recent London Daily Telegraph report that U.S. Banker J.P. Morgan has also invested more than 1 billion US dollars in the metal.

During a recent trip to Kuala Lumpur, Von Strasser said that he believes that, "copper will continue to rise."

"The following factors are in force here: there is a continued and strong demand from emerging markets, hedge funds and [the U.S. Banker] J.P. Morgan are in the market, and the supply chain was interrupted and is at risk again from industrial action in South America."

Since July 1, 2010, copper has surged more than forty-two percent. Glencore Group, a leading supplier, is planning a full market listing next year, and Von Strasser sees this as their way of tapping into massive shareholder funding currently unavailable to them as a private company.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the LME (London Metal Exchange), considered the hub of base-metals trading, says that its' warehouses hold about 350,000 tons of copper, down from 555,000 tons at the same time last year. This decrease suggests prices may well continue to rise.

Von Strasser originally made his fortune in South Africa in 1979. He pioneered a process whereby the mercury used in the gold mining industry was economically and safely removed from the mine workings. Since then, he has become known for his large scale environmental projects, including the clean-up of toxic waste sites in Somalia and Mozambique, and now in the Gulf Coast of the United States.

"I freely acknowledge," he famously said, "that I am a businessman and industrialist first. However, today, steel recycling goes hand-in-hand with environmentalism."

In 2005, after visiting Somalia, Von Strasser vowed to put at least 60% of his vast wealth into, "companies, research and grants focused on earth-friendly economic development." Von Strasser saw first hand the secondary damage of the tsunami as it disrupted and destroyed dumps where for decades nuclear and chemical waste had been deposited in Africa.

"Central European Waste Management is well situated to become a larger player in base metals next year," says Von Strasser, concluding, "but Copper is the boy to watch in 2011."