Sydney, June 8, 2026, 07:05 AEST
Sims Ltd goes into a holiday-shortened week facing new scrutiny about whether Sims Lifecycle Services should stay part of the business. The Australian said Sunday that calls for a split are rising as the tech-reuse division makes up more of group earnings.
The stock won’t trade Monday with the Australian Securities Exchange shut for the King’s Birthday holiday. That leaves investors waiting until Tuesday to react to the latest break-up news and Friday’s moves in global markets.
Sims closed Friday at A$27.50, slipping 1.4% for the session. Shares had touched a 52-week high of A$30.36 earlier in the week. About 1.34 million shares changed hands, above the usual 826,000. The company’s market cap was around A$5.31 billion.
The stock outperformed the market this week. The S&P/ASX 200 ended Friday at 8,625.10, dropping 0.70% for the session and settling about 1.2% lower than last Friday as losses in banks and miners dragged the index.
Right now, scrap isn’t the main concern. The focus has shifted to memory chips. Sims Lifecycle Services, known as SLS, runs IT asset disposition for companies and cloud operators — including reuse, resale and recycling of gear — and SLS is now the business in the group that tracks most closely with data-center and AI spending.
Sims told investors at a March event that SLS expects underlying EBIT of A$165 million to A$185 million for fiscal 2026. Underlying EBIT is earnings before interest and tax with one-off items removed. The company said “Memory GB Sold,” its key measure for chip volume by gigabyte, moves a lot with market prices.
DDR4 memory’s swings go both ways. Sims said DDR4, still found in a lot of servers and electronics, remains scarce as suppliers move to DDR5 and high-bandwidth chips for AI. Sims Limited’s half-year report showed DDR4 prices jumping 461.9% from a year ago, driving SLS revenue up 69.9% to A$327.4 million and underlying EBIT up 247.5% to A$49.0 million for the half ending Dec. 31.
Group figures came in mixed. Sims reported HY26 sales revenue of A$3.78 billion and underlying EBIT at A$121.1 million. But after hedge marks and other charges, statutory net profit after tax showed a loss of A$29.9 million. That has traders looking past the bottom-line loss, focusing on whether the SLS uplift can last.
Sims CEO Stephen Mikkelsen talked about the difference last year, saying SLS “again outperformed” on execution and “accelerating artificial intelligence-related demand,” while ferrous markets were “particularly difficult.” The metals unit is still important, but the share price suggests the market sees things another way. Sims Limited
Competitive angles are getting messy. BlueScope is the obvious choice for tracking listed steel demand, and Cleanaway stands as a straight waste management and recycling peer. Sims isn’t cleanly in either camp now, with part of its business driven by scrap and part by cloud data-centre turnover. BlueScope ended Friday at A$33.19. Cleanaway describes its offering as waste management, recycling and industrial services in Australia.
The risk is easy to see. If DDR4 resale prices drop or if big hyperscaler customers slow down on upgrading equipment, or if a demerger just remains talk, the premium in Sims shares can vanish fast. The metals business is still facing soft ferrous markets and high Chinese steel exports into Asia, both of which hit ANZ metal margins in the first half.
Nothing is on the Sims calendar this week that would clear up the argument. The next big date for investors is full-year earnings, set for Aug. 18, according to the official schedule. The annual meeting will follow in November.
ASX is likely to follow offshore signals at Tuesday’s open, with demerger news and Wall Street’s sharp Friday drop in focus. U.S. chip shares sold off after hot jobs data raised fresh rate concerns, putting pressure on AI-related names when local trade kicks off.
