Tata Steel Europe

"Corus" redirects here. For other uses, see Corus (disambiguation).
Tata Steel Europe Ltd.
Subsidiary
(Private limited company)
Industry Steel
Founded Koninklijke Hoogovens N.V. in 1918
British Steel Corp. in 1967
Corus Group plc in 1999
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Key people
 Karl-Ulrich Kohler, MD & CEO
Henrik Adam, CCO
Tor Farquhar, Executive Director Human Resources
N.K Misra, Director Finance
Products Steel
Revenue US$16.15 billion (year ending 31 March 2012)[1]
US$349 million (year ending 31 March 2012)[1]
Owner Tata Group
Number of employees
 50,000
Parent Tata Steel
Website http://tatasteeleurope.com

Tata Steel Europe Ltd. (formerly Corus Group plc) is a multinational steelmaking company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel since 2007.[2][3] It is the second-largest steel-maker in Europe.[2]

Corus Group was formed through the merger of Koninklijke Hoogovens and British Steel on 6 October 1999 and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Tata in 2007. Corus changed its name to Tata Steel Europe and adopted the Tata corporate identity in September 2010.

Tata Steel Europe operates two major integrated steel plants in the United Kingdom, at Port Talbot, south Wales, and Scunthorpe, north Lincolnshire, and one in IJmuiden, the Netherlands.

History

Background - Corus

British Steel Corp. was a large British steel producer, consisting of the assets of former private companies which had been nationalised on 28 July 1967 by the Labour Party government of Harold Wilson. On 5 December 1988 the company was privatised as a result of the British Steel Act 1988. Koninklijke Hoogovens was a Dutch steel producer founded in 1918, located in IJmuiden.

On 6 October 1999, British Steel merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group, which became the world's third-largest producer of steel (behind POSCO of South Korea and Nippon Steel of Japan). British Steel formed about two-thirds of the merged group.

On 16 March 2006, Corus announced that it had signed a letter of intent to sell its aluminium rolled products and extrusions businesses to Aleris International, Inc. for £570 million. Corus retained its smelting operations and supply Aleris under a long-term agreement. On 1 August, the sale to Aleris Europe was completed.[4]

Takeover by Tata Steel

On 30 January 2007, Tata Steel, part of India's Tata Group, purchased a 100% stake in the Corus Group at 608 pence per share in an all cash deal, cumulatively valued at US$12.04 billion.[5]

Tata surprised the credit default swap segment of the derivative markets by deciding to raise $6.17 billion 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.[6]

On 19 November 2006, the Brazillian steel company CSN launched a counter offer for Corus at 475 pence per share, valuing it at $8.4 billion.

On 10 December 2006, Tata preemptively upped the offer to 500 pence (the “Revised Tata Acquisition”). Other than the increased offer price, the Revised Tata Acquisition was subject to the same terms and conditions as set out in the original offer.

On 11 December 2006, CSN announced a formal offer for the Company at an offer price of 515 pence per Corus Share (the “CSN Acquisition”), valuing the deal at $9.6 billion.. The CSN Acquisition would also be implemented by way of a scheme of arrangement and is subject to a pre-condition that either Corus Shareholders reject the Tata Scheme or the Tata Scheme is otherwise withdrawn by Corus or lapses. The Corus board promptly recommended both the revised offers to its shareholders.

On 19 December 2006, Corus announced the following:

In the light of the competing offers for Corus by Tata Steel UK Ltd. (“Tata”) and CSN Acquisitions Ltd. (“CSN”), the Company announced on 12 December 2006 that the Corus Directors intended to propose resolutions to shareholders at each of the reconvened EGM and Court Meeting to be held on 20 December 2006 to adjourn those meetings. The Company also stated that it would announce a proposed date for those adjourned meetings in due course.

Also on 19 December 2006, UK Watchdog the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers announced that the last date for each of Tata and CSN to announce revised offers for the Company, should they wish to do so, is 30 January 2007. They also warned that it would begin an auction procedure if the two remained in competition.[7]

On 31 January 2007, following the lack of agreement on an offer, the previously mentioned 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 £6.7 billion deal includes £500 million of debt.

The Corus Group board recommended the acquisition to their shareholders later the same day.

2007 to present

On 26 January 2009, Corus announced job cuts of 3,500 worldwide and 2,500 in the UK due the economic downturn and the reduction of steel demand. It was announced that Corus's Rotherham plant would suffer the worst cutting over 600 jobs. On the same day it was announced that Corus would be closing down its defined benefit pension scheme to new members.

On 27 September 2010, Corus announced that it was changing its name to Tata Steel Europe and adopting the Tata logo. The style change started with immediate effect on transactional documents but the complete branding change would take place over an unspecified period.

In July 2012, Tata Steel were fined £500,000 over the 2006 death of worker Kevin Downey at their Port Talbot plant.[8] Engulfed in steam and left disorientated during a night shift, Downey died after wandering into a channel of molten slag heated to 1500°C.[8]

On 23 November 2012 Tata Steel Europe announced that, as a result of restructuring proposals, there would be a net loss of 900 jobs in the UK. [9]

TATA is cuurenly planning to sell the European Long Products division to Klesch Group, which should be completed around April 2015.

Operations

Blast Furnace 5 at the Port Talbot Steelworks
Scunthorpe Steelworks
The outside of the basic oxygen steelmaking plant at the Scunthorpe steel works.

Tata Steel Europe is organised into the following three divisions:

Following the sale of Teesside Steelworks to SSI in February 2011, Tata Steel Europe now operate three major integrated steel plants:

It also has rolling mills and steel product manufacturing sites situated at:

In addition it has tube mills located at Corby, Stockton and Hartlepool in England and Oosterhout, Arnhem, Zwijndrecht and Maastricht in the Netherlands. It has service centres predominantly in Northern Europe and sales offices in around 70 countries around the world. It has a color coating line in Sakarya, Turkey.

Products

Construction

Tata Steel Europe's steel products for construction include:

Tata Steel Europe publishes a reference guide known as the "Blue Book", which contains details of construction steel sections, and design information to use with Eurocode 3 and BS 5950.

Electrical steels

Tata Steel Europe produce electrical steels via their subsidiary Cogent Power.[11]

Tata Steel Europe also intends to produce steel roofs that generate power, using Dyesol technology.

Sponsorships

Tata Steel Europe is the sponsor of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and SC Telstar (football club) in the Netherlands and the UK triathlon team.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Tata Steel reports Consolidated Financial Results for the Financial Year ending March 31, 2012". Tata Steel. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Tata Steel in Europe". Tata Steel. Retrieved 29 November 2010.
  3. ↑ "Addresses". Tata Steel. Retrieved 29 November 2010.
  4. ↑ Corus of approval for Aluminium sale
  5. ↑ "India's Tata wins race for Corus". BBC. 31 January 2007. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
  6. ↑ Ryan, Jennifer (25 October 2006). "Tata Debt for Corus Leaves Derivative Trades in Lurch". Bloomberg. Retrieved 25 October 2006.
  7. ↑ "Watchdog sets Corus bid deadline". BBC News. 19 December 2006. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Tata Steel fined £500,000 over death of worker Kevin Downey". Wales Online. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  9. ↑ "Tata Steel Press Release". Tata Steel Europe. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  10. ↑ European producers of Engineering Steel
  11. ↑ Electrical Steels

External links