Word: steeled
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...which sets the stage for a new round of global consolidation in the industry. Last week, in a complicated $17.8 billion deal, Indian entrepreneur Lakshmi Mittal said he would merge his existing steel assets - the privately-held LNM Holdings and the publicly-traded Ispat International - with the U.S.-based International Steel Group (ISG). The deal, which must still gain regulatory approval, would create the world's biggest steel company, Mittal Steel, to be based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and help Mittal pursue his modest goal of making Mittal as synonymous with steel as Ford is with the motor...
...Mittal's move is the boldest in a series of M&A maneuvers that steel producers hope will help them thrive. According to its owners, the industry's problem was that too many providers made prices too competitive and profits impossible. For example, the world's Top 10 steelmakers supply less than one-third of all steel produced; by comparison, the world's Top 10 automakers have more than 90% of the global auto market. Historically, especially in the U.S., automakers have been able to play off one mill against another to secure lower prices...
...Thus mergers have proliferated: Luxembourg-based Arcelor, currently the world's largest steel producer, was formed in 2002 through the merger of steel companies in Luxembourg, Spain and France. Corus emerged from the 1999 union of British Steel and Dutch firm Hoogovens. In order for steelmakers to wield sufficient clout, notes Tommy Trask, an analyst at Standard & Poor's, steel "needs to be as consolidated as the iron-ore suppliers or the end customers." Both Mittal and Wilbur Ross, the former investment banker and distressed investment specialist who helped create ISG, envisage a future where steel is dominated...
...grand vision, though not without risk. In a series of shrewd moves that netted him an estimated $22 billion fortune and the nickname "the Carnegie of Calcutta," Mittal, 54, has spent much of his career buying run-down steel facilities in far-flung locations like Romania and Kazakhstan and returning them to profitability. But ISG is a different animal. It was formed in 2002 from the guts of the bankrupt LTV steel business. Under the watchful eye of Ross, the firm, which employs 15,000 people, grew into one of the U.S.'s major steel producers by acquiring money-losers...
...also got a major boost from the United Steel Workers of America union (uswa), which made major contract concessions to Ross to help get the business underway. So far, uswa seems to view Mittal's move as positive. Says union president Leo Gerrard: "Larger, stronger steel companies benefit our members and retirees." And outside analysts see a good fit between Mittal's surfeit of raw materials and ISG's demand for them. Raju Daswani, head of research at industry analysis firm Metal Bulletin Research, says: "Mittal [has] a lot of raw material production, but not much exposure to the high...