Mittal Steel to take over Arcelor
Mumbai: Mittal and Arcelor will soon sign papers agreeing to an in-principle merger of Mittal and Arcelor. The deal according to which the merged entity will be called Arcelor Mittal was arrived at following Mittal Steel hiking the offer price for each Arcelor share to euro 43.

LN Mittal and J Kinsch will be co-chairmen of the new company. Mittal, Arcelor will retain Dofasco and the board of directors will have Arcelor representatives.

Meanwhile, Arcelor will have to pay euro 130 million to Severstal as compensation for breaking the contract.

The Mittal-Arcelor merger deal was arrived at following Mittal hiking the offer price for each Arcelor share to euro 43.

Arcelor last month struck a deal with Russian steel tycoon Alexey Mordashov to buy his 90 per cent stake in OAO Severstal for stock, making Mordashov Arcelor's largest shareholder. Arcelor shareholders, were against the deal and petitioned the company to allow them to vote to approve it in a traditional way. Mordashov has also improved the terms of his bid once, agreeing to accept a 25 per cent stake in Arcelor instead of the initial 32 per cent in exchange for Severstal. Arcelor didn't recommend the new terms and instead continued talks with Mittal to try to get the best deal possible for Sunday's board meeting to decide on.
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Momentum of growth to be maintained: China
Beijing: There is still high demand for bank loans in China to the fast growth of fixed asset investment, which will keep the economy growing at a brisk pace, according to reports from arms of the central bank published by the Financial News.

GDP growth in the first half of 2006 would be 10.3 per cent, moderating to 10.0 per cent growth for the full year, while consumer prices would rise by 1.3 per cent in the first half of the year and by 1.7 per cent in all of 2006, according to a report from the central bank's research bureau.

Although the pace of new bank loans has slowed somewhat, demand for funds is still very strong, according to an analysis by the central bank's Financial Survey and Statistics Department.

Chinese fixed-asset investment grew by 30.3 per cent in January through May compared with the same period a year earlier.
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