Corus waiting for CSN bid

Anglo-Dutch steel producer corus has postponed a shareholders meeting to vote on the UK£ 5,1 billion (€ 7,5 billion) takeover bid from Indian-owned Tata in order to give Brazilian steel maker Cia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) time to make a rival offer.

Corus’ extraordinary general meeting, where shareholders were expected to approve Tata’s UK£ 4,55 (€ 6,74) per share bid was due to be held on 4 December, but has now been delayed until 20 December. CSN made an informal offer of UK£ 4,75 (€ 7,4) per Corus share on 17 November, valuing the company at UK£ 5,3 billion (€ 7,86 billion).

According to Corus’ third quarter statement the company is working with CSN, “Corus has made due diligence information available to CSN and has also made senior management available.”

The statement also revealed that the company’s third quarter net profit was up +182% to UK£ 141 million (€ 209 million) compared to the same period last year. Corus’ revenues were also up +17% to UK£ 2,46 billion (€ 3,64 billion).

According to figures supplied by the companies a merger of Corus, which produced 18,3 million tonnes of steel in 2005, and CSN (5,2 million tonnes) would give a combined annual crude steel output of 23,4 million tonnes. An alliance between Tata (5,3 million tonnes) and Corus would produce 23,5 million tonnes per year. Either merger would give the new company about a 2% share of the global steel market, which stood at 1,13 billion tonnes of crude steel in 2005.