July 2, 2019
Sanjeev Gupta-owned Liberty Steel has acquired seven steel plants and five service centers from Lakshmi Niwas Mittal’s ArcelorMittal SA in Europe for EUR 740 million (around INR 5782 crore), according to a company statement.
Liberty House has acquired the major integrated steel works at Ostrava in the Czech Republic and Galati in Romania as well as rolling mills at Skopje (North Macedonia), Piombino (Italy), Dudelange (Luxembourg) and two plants near Liege in Belgium, it said. These seven sites employ over 14,000 people.
The five service centers which market the products are based in France and Italy. These operations, with combined rolling capacity of over 10 million tonne per annum, supply steel to multiple sectors across Europe, including construction, infrastructure, automotive, aerospace, energy, industrial equipment, consumer products and yellow goods.
“Liberty Steel has completed acquisition of seven major steelworks and five service centers across seven European countries from ArcelorMittal.
“This EUR 740 million deal makes Liberty Steel one of the top ten producers globally, excluding China, with a total rolling capacity in excess of 18 million tonne covering a wide range of finished products,” said Liberty Steel, which is part of London-based GFG Alliance. It is a global group of energy, mining, metals, engineering and financial services businesses.
According to Liberty Steel, this is the largest single transaction undertaken by GFG and brings the Alliance’s worldwide workforce to nearly 30,000 across 30 counties. The Liberty House firm said it aims to boost sales from these sites by around 50 percent over the next three years.
Liberty Steel will now work with local management, trade unions, customers and suppliers and complete a comprehensive analysis of the businesses to explore investment opportunities. In the medium term, it will explore opportunities to produce higher-quality steels with a more flexible production profile.
