Alcoa

This situation is even more remarkable given even a cursory glance at global aluminum prices. While aluminum prices have not fully recovered from their peak just before the 2008 financial crisis, they have returned to their price point in the early 2000s - which is higher than what the metal was trading for during most of the 1980s and 1990s.

Turkey's largest private pension fund Oyak has agreed to buy German alumina products maker Almatis from Dubai International Capital (DIC), the company said in a statement on July 14.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

However, a person familiar with the deal said that DIC was able to achieve a price close to its expectations of around $1 billion.