The new company being spun off from the Alcoa organization will be called Arconic, the aluminum and titanium manufacturer announced. The new name and the slogan devised to follow it — "Arconic. Innovation, Engineered" — are intended to express the new organization’s “iconic heritage and commitment to industry shaping innovation,” according to a statement: "arc" is meant to suggest the "arc of progress and the continued pursuit of advancement for customers, employees, shareholders and communities; and “-conic” is meant to suggest the company’s history of creating iconic products and its focus on innovation.
The timing of the spin-off has not been made clear. Alcoa has previously stated the separation would be completed in the latter half of this year.
Last September Alcoa directors approved a plan to separate the organization into two independent, publicly traded companies, one comprised of the primary aluminum production activities (bauxite, alumina, aluminum, casting, and energy), retaining the Alcoa name; and one that incorporates the “value adding” lines of business, including the Global Rolled Products, Engineered Products and Solutions, and Transportation and Construction Solutions divisions.
Alcoa’s investment casting and forging operations will be included in the Arconic portfolio. The new business will be particularly focused on the aerospace industry (with products like jet engine and industrial gas turbine airfoils, and aerospace fasteners) and the aluminum-intensive automotive market, via rolled products and aluminum commercial truck wheels.
Both Arconic and Alcoa will be U.S.-based companies and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Alcoa had previously emphasized that both companies would attract investors “best suited to their unique value proposition and operational and financial characteristics.”
In addition to announcing a name for the new company, Alcoa unveiled as its logo “a two-dimensional icon as its logo that the eye sees as a three-dimensional projection,” symbolizing the Alcoa history and Arconic’s new identity.
“The ‘Arconic’ brand fuses our extraordinary heritage with our highly promising future,” stated Alcoa chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “It echoes our 127-year history of invention – and reinvention.”
The company also unveiled a new version of the Alcoa logo for the future company, which Kleinfeld said represents “a transformed and agile upstream company: resilient against market down-swings and poised to capitalize on upswings.”