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Mittal to unveil acquisition plan
Source: PTI
February 23, 2006 20:03 IST
Mittal Steel, owned by NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, hopes to reduce some of the tension in France over its hostile $22.1 billion bid to take over Luxembourg-based Arcelor through a meeting next week in Paris with the French Finance Minister.

Mittal will present further details of the proposed acquisition to Thierry Breton during their meeting, which follows a call from the minister for more information about how a takeover would affect Arcelor's plants in France.

Nearly a third of Arcelor's 78,000 European employees are based in its French plants, said a report in the Financial Times on Thursday.

Breton said yesterday Mittal would present him with a "business plan" on what would happen if the transaction went ahead, the daily reported.

Mittal hopeful of taking over Arcelor

"From the first day we have demanded to see an industrial project and I have good news for you... I have been informed this morning that we are going to get this industrial project early next week," he said.

Mittal was unable to confirm the shape of this business plan on Wednesday, triggering speculation it might not amount to much more than what is already available on the company's website about the planned merger.

Mittal has already said he would keep open Arcelor's main plants in western Europe, which he regards as highly competitive on account of large investments by Arcelor in production technology in the past few years.

He also values Arcelor's links with European customers such as carmakers -which are large buyers of some of the special steels made by the Luxembourg company - and wants to build on them.

But French President Jacques Chirac has called for more details, saying the bid was "purely financial in character, devoid of all industrial intents".

Elaborating on the meeting with Breton, Mittal said: "the industrial plan forms the base of our offer. We will now be starting the process of sharing the key features of this plan with all the stakeholders involved."

Arcelor argues that if the merger went ahead it would be almost certain to fail because of the groups' contrasting styles.

Guy Dolle, chief executive of Arcelor has asked Mittal to send him written proposals of how a merger would work. So far Mittal has refused to do this.

Separately, Arcelor put a brave face on the ending of its plan to take a minority stake in Erdemir, Turkey's biggest steelmaker, by saying it would "continue to develop its position in the growing Turkish and regional steel markets".

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