Mittal Steel Merges With Arcelor To Become Giant

India-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, right, has negotiated a merger between his company, Mittal Steel and Arecelor for $34 billion. The megamergers within utilities, oil and gas firms and the steel industry appear to be getting more painful to conclude. Arcelor fought the merger ruthlessly before relenting and now a son of India is running a steel giant from Luxembourg. The new company will be named Arcelor-Mittal. The new company will also have 320,000 employees, $70 billion in revenue and 100 million tons of annual capacity. Lakshmi Mittal is third richest man in the world behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and is the richest man residing in Britain.

Mittal Steel Company is the largest steel producer in the world and in the U.S. since it purchased Ohio-based International Steel Group (ISG) in mid-April. In addition to Mittal, foreigners now control 40 percent of U.S. Steel production. Mittal Steel is based in London with corporate headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Lakshmi Mittal and his son, Aditya, president of the company, have publicly announced plans to eliminate 45,000 steel jobs worldwide over the next five years in order to integrate ISG into their holdings.

Mittal Steel USA has steel producing sites in East Chicago and Burns Harbor, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; Weirton, West Virginia; Sparrows Point, Maryland; Steelton, Pennsylvania; Georgetown, South Carolina; and Riverdale, Illinois. The company also has finishing facilities in Hennepin, Illinois, Lackawanna, New York, Newton, North Carolina, and Columbus, Ohio.