CSN blinks at 603p, Tata Steel bags Corus for $12.11 billion

Rex Mathew
31 January 2007

As the auction process initiated by The Takeover Panel of UK for Corus Group Plc entered the final round, Ratan Tata held his nerve while his Brazilian rival Benjamin Steinburch of steel company CSN blinked.

Tata Steel's offer of 608 pence per share of Corus in the 9th and final round of bidding forced CSN out of the race, catapulting the Indian company to the rank of the fifth-largest global steel maker. Tata Steel is now all set to acquire the second-largest European steel maker after it gets formal approval from the Corus board and subsequently from shareholders.

Tata Steel has spent more than $400 million in recent years to buy Singapore's NatSteel and Thailand's Millennium Steel, and other group companies have also made acquisitions outside India.

The UK's Teley Tea and South Korea's Daewoo are some of the Tata Group's previous global acquisitions.

Corus marks the biggest-ever overseas acquisition by an Indian company and the second largest ever in the global steel business after the Mittal Steel - Arcelor merger last year. Among domestic business groups, Tata group has been in the forefront in overseas acquisitions over the last few years with many notable deals involving some well established brands.

Early media reports had calculated the deal value at $11.3 billion (approximately Rs50,000 crore) based on the issued equity capital of 94,609,059 shares.