London, April 02: Indian conglomerate Tata Group's 12
billion dollar takeover of Anglo-Dutch giant Corus Group Plc
reached its culmination with the deal coming into effect from
Mionday, making Tata Steel the world's fifth largest steel firm.
The Anglo-Dutch steel giant today announced the scheme of
arrangement related to the company's takeover by Tata Steel at
a price of 608 pence per share has now become effective.
With this, Corus has become a subsidiary of Tata Steel,
which now has about 24 million tonnes of production capacity.
Today's announcement came after the approval of the deal
by Corus shareholders on March 7 and by a UK court on March 27
and suspension in trading of Corus shares on March 30.
The only formality left in this deal, which marks the
biggest ever overseas acquisition by an Indian entity, is the
payment of the balance amount by Tata Steel, which has already
spent close to 2.5 billion dollars by acquiring about 21 per
cent stake in Corus through open market transactions.
Tata steel had said on February 7 it intends to make the
payments as soon as possible on or after the effective date.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tata Steel is required
to make all the payments within 14 days of the deal coming
into effect, that is by April 16.
Tatas' bid for Corus went through lots of turbulence
since October 4 when it confirmed talks for the acquisition --
mainly after it was rivaled by Brazil's CSN, which said it
plans to launch a 475 pence offer as against 455 pence then
offer from Tata Steel.
Tata Steel later revised their bid to 500 pence a share,
but were outbid within hours with a 515 pence offer from CSN.
The competing bids forced the UK takeover panel, the British
merger and acquisition watchdog, to step in with an auction
process to determine the winner.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, April 02, 2007, 00:00