On 20 October 2006 the board of directors of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus accepted a $7.6 billion takeover bid from Tata Steel, the Indian steel company. The following months saw a lot of negotiations from both sides of the deal. Tata Steel's bid to acquire Corus Group was challenged by CSN, the Brazilian steel maker. Finally, on January 30, 2007, Tata Steel purchased a 100% stake in the Corus Group at 608 pence per share in an all cash deal, cumulatively valued at USD 12.04 Billion. The deal is the largest Indian takeover of a foreign company and made Tata Steel the world's fifth-largest steel group.
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'Tata Steel', formerly known as TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited), was the world's 56th largest and India's 2nd largest steel company with an annual crude steel capacity of 3.8 million tonnes. It is based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.[1][2] It is part of the Tata Group of companies. Post Corus merger, Tata Steel is India's second-largest and second-most profitable company in private sector with consolidated revenues of Rs 1,32,110 crore and net profit of over Rs 12,350 crore during the year ended March 31, 2008.[3][4]. The company was also recognized as the world's best steel producer by World Steel Dynamics in 2005. The company is listed on BSE and NSE; and employs about 82,700 people (as of 2007).
Corus was formed from the merger of Koninklijke Hoogovens N.V. with British Steel Plc on 6 October 1999. It has major integrated steel plants at Port Talbot, South Wales; Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire; Teesside, Cleveland (all in the United Kingdom) and IJmuiden in the Netherlands. It also has rolling mills situated at Shotton, North Wales (which manufactures Colorcoat products), Trostre in Llanelli, Llanwern in Newport, South Wales, Rotherham and Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, England, Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, Hayange, France, and Bergen, Norway. In addition it has tube mills located at Corby, Stockton and Hartlepool in England and Oosterhout, Arnhem, Zwijndrecht and Maastricht in the Netherlands. Group turnover for the year to 31 December 2005 was £10.142 billion. Profits were £580 million before tax and £451 million after tax.
There were a lot of apparent synergies between Tata Steel which was a low cost steel producer in fast developing region of the world and Corus which was a high value product manufacturer in the region of the world demanding value products. Some of the prominent synergies that could arise from the deal were as follows :
In November 2006,Brazilian steel marker Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN)challenged Tata Steel's proposal for acquisition. They countered Tata Steel's offer of 455 pence per share by offering 475 pence per share of Corus.
Tata surprised the credit default swap segment of the derivative markets by deciding to raise $6.17bn of debt for the deal through a new subsidiary of Corus called 'Tata Steel UK', rather than by raising the debt itself. Tata's security credit rating is investment grade, whereas the new subsidiary may not be. The higher risk associated with raising debt through a subsidiary with a lower credit rating prompted Fitch Ratings to downgrade its rating of the credit swap risks in the takeover to 'negative'. Fitch also stated that Corus' responsibility for the debt may lead to Corus' own unsecured debt rating being downgraded. This does not affect the rating of bonds issued by Corus which are secured debt.
On January 31, 2007, following the lack of agreement on an offer, an auction process was triggered. Following the conclusion of the auction process (at an unprecedented length of nine rounds) conducted by the Panel in accordance with Rule 32.5 of the Code (the "Auction"), Tata Steel announced the proposed acquisition of Corus Group at 608p per share, that being 5p more than CSN's top offer of 603p. The final valuation of Corus was thus put at $12.04 Billion.
A new board was formulated with representation from both the companies to provide a common platform for strategy and integration.
A 'Strategic and Integration Committee' was formulated to develop and execute the integration and further growth plans. Appropriate cross functional teams were formed under this committee to look into specific issues.