Kretinsky to sell Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe stake, opening path for Jindal deal
Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky will sell his 20 percent stake in Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, subsidiary of German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp Steel, ending protracted joint venture talks and paving the way for Thyssenkrupp to intensify negotiations with India-based Jindal Steel International, according to a report by Reuters.
In September this year, Jindal Steel International submitted a non-binding offer to acquire the steel business of Thyssenkrupp, as SteelOrbis previously reported.
Kretinsky’s move closes a chapter that began when his EP Group purchased the stake in 2023, with the aim of building a German-Czech steel and energy giant.
While the sale price was never disclosed, industry insiders valued the original transaction at around €140 million ($164 million). The sale of the stake by Kretinsky will clear the way for Thyssenkrupp to concentrate fully on talks with Jindal Steel, which recently submitted an indicative bid for the entire steel unit.
Jindal Steel prepared to continue thyssenkrupp’s green transformation
Jindal Steel International would continue thyssenkrupp Steel’s transformation to low-emission direct reduced iron-based steelmaking if it were to acquire the German steel giant.
The Indian group submitted a non-binding offer for thyssenkrupp Steel Europe on Tuesday.
“We believe in the future of green steel production in Germany and Europe,” Narendra Misra, Jindal’s director of European operations, is quoted as saying by multiple press reports. Jindal’s goal is “to preserve and grow thyssenkrupp’s 200-year industrial legacy and help transform it into Europe’s largest integrated low-emission steelmaker.”
Jindal would invest €2 billion ($2.4 billion) in the transformation at the Duisburg production plants. According to a report by Reuters, it would also be prepared to take over the company’s pension liabilities.
If acquired by Jindal, thyssenkrupp Steel would benefit from low-emission metallics or slab supply from Jindal’s new plant in Oman, which is scheduled to start operations in 2027, as well as iron ore from its mines in Cameroon.
The offer from the Indian group has been welcomed in principle by parent thyssenkrup AG, which has tried for years to spin off its steel unit. Union IG Metall also welcomed the news, underlining the significance of the green transition and the importance of maintaining jobs.
Incidentally, the offer became public on the day that annual collective wage bargaining talks began between IG Metall and German mill employers. The union is keeping its claims modest this time around. In view of the difficult economic situation, it has not entered the talks with defined wage increase claims. Another meeting will follow at the end of this week.
In the name of thyssenkrupp Steel workers, IG Metall struck earlier this month an agreement with the company on lower wages and working hours, and a reduction of certain standard benefits.
Christian Koehl Germany
India’s Jindal bids for ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe
Indian steelmaker Jindal Steel will enter negotiations with German producer ThyssenKrupp for the acquisition of its European steel arm.
Jindal confirmed it has submitted a non-binding offer for ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, with plans to transform it into ‘Europe’s largest integrated low-emission steelmaker’.
“The plan would secure steel production in Germany and create new business opportunities,” Jindal said.
ThyssenKrupp is currently in the process of downsizing its production capacity and staff, after it reached an agreement with workers’ union IG Metall in July.
The Indian steelmaker added that as part of its offer it pledges to complete the DRI project in Duisburg and establish additional electric arc furnace (EAF) capacity with a financial commitment of over €2bn.
This contrasts Luxembourg-based steelmaker ArcelorMittal’s position, after it said it would not proceed with previously announced direct-reduced iron (DRI) and EAF decarbonisation projects at Bremen and Eisenhuttenstadt due to concerns related to economic feasibility.
ThyssenKrupp ceded last year 20pc of its stake in its European steel arm to German infrastructure investor EP Corporate Group (EPCG). Talks continued as EPCG looked to acquire a further 30pc to form a 50:50 joint venture.
The steelmaker is also looking to sell its 50pc stake in the German producer Huttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann (HKM). ThyssenKrupp said this remains the preferred option after it announced the termination of its supply contact with HKM in April.
By Carlo Da Cas
Source: argusmedia.com
ADI continues talks with potential buyers
The extraordinary administrators of Italian integrated steelmaker Acciaierie d’Italia (ADI) are continuing negotiations with interested buyers, the steelmaker said earlier this week.
The interested parties remain the same – an Azerbaijani consortium led by Baku Steel, Indian steel company Jindal Steel and the United States investment fund Bedrock Industries Management.
“The shared objective is to identify solid, sustainable and long-term industrial solutions,” an ADI spokesman said.
The ADI administration is paying particular attention to the required gas supply development for the green transition of the mill, including replacement of blast furnaces (BFs) with direct-reduced iron and electric-arc furnace (DRI-EAF) production.
ADI has been inactive in the market over the past month. In late June, Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT), Adolfo Urso, told trade unions that all ADI’s blast furnaces (BFs) were at risk of closure. Italian authorities have been negotiating the sale of the plant to several potential buyers, including Baku Steel and JSW Steel.
On 4 July, the MIMIT held a meeting regarding energy supply for the decarbonization of ADI. The next meeting will take place on 8 July.
Maria Tanatar Associate Director, Steel and Green Steel
Jindal Steel acquires Czech Republic’s Vítkovice Steel
The acquisition received the green light from the Czech Republic’s Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) on December 20, 2024, with the change of ownership effective as of January 1 2025, according to documents seen by Fastmarkets.
“We are convinced that this will strengthen the company and the Czech steel industry. The new industrial owner will bring stabilization to the company and, above all, development in the form of investments in production technologies, sharing foreign know-how and moving towards ecologically produced low-emissions steel,” Radek Strouhal, CEO of Vitkovice steel, said in a press release.
Located in Ostrava, Vitkovice is Czech Republic’s sole producer of heavy steel plate, with capacity to produce 800,000 tonnes per year of the material. The company has operated as a re-roller since end-2015, procuring slabs from third parties in Russia, Asia, and the European Union.
Semis supply
Vitkovice has been relying mainly on imports of Russia-origin slabs, sources said, but it plans to procure more semis from its new owner moving forward.
“We plan to get slabs from Jindal in the next years,” a spokesperson for Vitkovice told Fastmarkets, adding that the facility currently has other suppliers.
The new owner has no immediate plans to install a new electric-arc furnace (EAF) and resuming internal slab production, Fastmarkets understands.
Vítkovice is Jindal Group’s first European acquisition. The parties had been negotiating since the spring of 2024, Fastmarkets reported.
Jindal International Group plans to invest up to €150 million ($155.4 million) in the development of the Ostrava facility in the coming years, mainly in the expansion of its capacity and the production of products with higher added value.
Vitkovic’s previous ownership turmoil
Vitkovice was owned by Russian company Evraz Plc until 2014.
Evraz Plc sold its Evraz Vitkovice Steel AS subsidiary to a group of Cyprus-registered private investment companies for $89 million in 2014.
The ownership of the mill became uncertain after that. Several sources told Fastmarkets at the time that the Cypriot companies were affiliated with Russia, notably VEB bank, and probably also Evraz.
In May 2022, the Czech Republic’s Financial Analytical Office blocked the assets of Vitkovice Steel after having recognized that, behind the Cypriot funds owning Vitkovice Steel, there were Russian owners.
This, however, was denied by the company.
“The company is not owned by Russian entities, it is owned by five multinational investment funds based in Cyprus and owned by people from the countries of the former Soviet Union, but not from Russia,” the Vitkovice’s spokesperson told Fastmarkets at the time.
The suspected ownership link to Russia, which the company repeatedly denied, was not confirmed, which led Czech authorities to close the investigation in July 2024, allowing the negotiations with Jindal to move forward.
