Company News

Reischauer Joins the Heimerle + Meule Group

Precious metal manufacturer Heimerle + Meule has begun this year by announcing the acquisition of Swiss company Reischauer, which produces blanks and mintings made of precious metal and copper materials.

Founded in 1913, Reischauer initially supplied semi-finished goods and precious metal products to jewellery processing companies, before beginning production of gold and silver medals in the 1980s.

More recently, the company has built up its business activities in the coin industry, working exclusively in the sector for just over a decade.

The Heimerle + Meule Group, which represents the precious metal processing division within the Lübeck-based Possehl Group, has become one of the key players in the precious metal sector. It entered the coin business in 2013 with the takeover of the Cookson Group, including the shares of the Spanish coin blank producer Sempsa, among others.

According to the Group, the acquisition enables Heimerle + Meule to further expand its value chain in precious metals processing and further cements its position in the European precious metals market.

This follows it acquiring a majority stake in the UK-based Commonwealth Mint two years ago.

Also Acquired… Royal United Mint

The Heimerle + Meule Group has since followed the news of the Reischauer acquisition by announcing the purchase of the Royal United Mint from the Belgian Heylen Group, which is the world’s second largest private industrial holding company in the production of coins.

The acquisition includes the Royal Dutch Mint, which has been producing Dutch coins since 1567 and has developed into one of the largest coin manufacturers in Europe, with customers among more than 60 central banks for circulation coins. It is also a leading producer of commemorative coins, tokens and investment coins made of precious metals. Originally owned by the Dutch government, it was sold to the Heylen Group in 2016.

The acquisition also includes Dutch Value Logistics (storage and logistics for value products), the Belgian company Tool & Dies (a manufacturer of tools for the metal processing industry) and the blank, precious metal coin and medal producer Osborne Coinage, the oldest private mint in the USA – which was acquired by Royal United Mint last year (see CMN March 2023).

‘We have made the Royal United Mint Group a globally significant and profitable provider of official monetary coins, collector and investment coins and tokens. We are delighted to have found the ideal new shareholder in the Heimerle + Meule Group, which will continue this successful development’, said Vincent Van Hecke, CEO of Royal United Mint, and of the Royal Dutch Mint.

Royal United Mint’s token business Mauquoy Token Company, which also includes the Belgian companies VistaMint, National Tokens and Royal Blanking, has been spun off into a separate independent company to supply tokens, blanks and souvenir coins.

Freiberger EuroMetall Acquires MoF Blanks Business

Completing the list of recent acquisitions is that of the Mint of Finland’s blanks business by German producer Freiberger EuroMetall. The transaction between the two organisations includes the blank factory in Halsbrücke, Germany, and its stake in the Spanish blank manufacturer Compañía Europea de Cospeles SA (CECO SA).

The on-going projects for the supply of coins and coin blanks to various customer will be completed by Mint of Finland as planned and agreed with each customer, it said. But in future, it will tender for the blanks needed for its circulation coin business.

The move will, it added, enable it to focus on the sale of circulating coins and related services from one site, at Vantaa in Finland.

The sale of the blanks business has now come full circle for the blanks manufacturing sector in the area. The Mint of Finland bought what was then Saxonia Eurocoin, the largest blank manufacturer in Europe, back in 2011. Two years later, the original Saxonia owners set up Freiberger EuroMetall just down the road from Halsbrücke, in Freiberg. Now, they are back to owning their original company again.

Coiniverse Launches Coin AI

Coin collecting application, Coiniverse, has announced the launch of a ‘cutting- edge, generative AI assistant designed to enrich the coin collecting experience’ on its platform.

Described as ‘your personal collecting assistant’, Coin AI is capable of answering general questions about coins and coin collecting. Examples provided by the company include questions such as ‘What’s the history behind the Morgan Silver Dollar?’ or ‘How do I catalogue my coins?’, with the option to continue the dialogue with Coin AI from there. To ensure privacy and the safety of users, it will not access or provide information related to personal accounts or specific transactions within Coiniverse.

Last Autumn, Mikko Sievänen, CEO of Coiniverse, noted his goal for Coiniverse to be ‘on top of technology’ and consider new concepts and technologies, specifically mentioning the utilisation of a conversational AI (see CMN September 2023 for the full interview).

‘The rise of generative AI and new language models brings a lot of new possibilities, apart from the enormous hype around them. We want to help coin collectors easily use this technology to learn from the coins and the hobby. As trust is the number one factor for us, we also wanted to ensure we were not compromising on quality or risking the safety of our users when using these solutions. This is one further step to introduce new technology through Coiniverse to make the collecting experience better and even more fun’, he commented on the recent update.

Coin AI is currently in beta, said the company, and is constantly being improved based on user feedback. All users are able to test the assistant with a limited number of questions, whilst Coiniverse Club members are able to ask unlimited questions.

The latest updated to the platform also includes automated translations for coin details and multilingual search capabilities, plus the launch of an exclusive Coiniverse commemorative medal. The medal is a limited edition ‘treasure’, with mintage limited to 7,000 pieces.

SPMCIL Records Strong Growth

Under the new leadership of Vijay Ranjan Singh – appointed as Chairman and Managing Director of the company in September – the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) has recently released its latest FY 2022-23 Annual Report. SPMCIL registered a growth of 20.35% as its revenue increased to Rs 49.18 billion, Rs 40.86 billion last year.

The profit before tax (PTB) from continuing operations, meanwhile, increased by over 170%, from Rs 8.63 billion to Rs 23.41 billion. This included Rs 3.85 billion from the Ministry of Finance as an adjustment covering price differences in the rates at which circulating coins were billed in 2018/19 and 2019/2020.

On the coin front, SPMCIL registered an increase of 26.55% in production, minting 992.22 million pieces during the year 2022-23, compared to against 784 million pieces during the year 2021-22.

IGM (Indian Government Mint) Noida produced the highest volume of circulating coins, at 389.95 million pieces compared to 301.00 million pieces produced in the previous period. Mumbai produced 216.31 million pieces (compared to 177 million pieces), whilst Hyderabad produced 175 million pieces (compared to 142 million pieces), and Kolkata produced 210.96 million pieces, against 164 million pieces in the previous year.

The company’s coin production does, however, still need to be fully utilised – with the overall production figures only 13% of the SPMCIL total annual coin production capacity. The decrease in the production of circulating coins in recent years is due to a reduction in the issue of circulating coins by the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India.

KOMSCO Considers Commemorative Coin Production

The Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation (KOMSCO), which operates under the country’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, has announced its intention to issue commemorative coins as it explores new growth opportunities for the organisation.

At a seminar held earlier in the month, the utilisation of commemorative coins as a vehicle for growth was considered as part of a wider discussion on the possibilities for precious metals coins in terms of both a cultural emblem but also as the country moves towards a less-cash society.

Korea has previously issued commemorative coins – albeit not as frequently as other countries or mints – with previous releases paying homage to its National Parks in 2019, and commemorating the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2019, for example.

A commemorative medal, issued in 2022 to mark the 10th anniversary of K-pop music group BTS, resulted in the highest sales figures ever recorded by the company for any product of this type – with over 10,000 pieces sold totalling around 6 billion won (£3.58 million).