Tata Steel appears to have opted out of the race for Krivorizhstal, Ukraine's largest steel mill and metallurgical unit.
The bid closed on June 7 and the State Property Fund of Ukraine has announced that six companies have bid for a shade over 93 per cent of shares in the Krivorizhstal ore mining and metallurgical plant at a reserve price of $714 million.
Three foreign companies and at least two Ukrainian companies have bid for the plant. The bid would be evaluated on June 14 and a final decision would be taken thereafter. A Tata Steel spokesperson refused to comment on the issue.
Krivorizhstal had reported a pre-tax profit of $302 million last year and had a capacity of 7 million tonne of steel, 7.8 million tonne of pig iron and was currently producing 20 per cent of Ukraine's steel.
However, according to reports in the international media, the privatisation of the plant has run into rough weather with the Ukrainian Parliament's privatisation committee filing a lawsuit seeking better protection for the Krivorizhstal staff against layoffs.
Analysts said, if the process was stalled then the terms of privatisation could be revised. One of the clauses stipulated that bidders must have produced and sold at least one million tonne of coke in Ukraine, which was against the interest of foreign bidders, including Tata Steel.
Establishing a global presence was part of Tata Steel's growth strategy to become a 15 million tonne entity by 2010.
The plan being chalked out was that half of that capacity would come up in Jamshedpur and the balance would be spread over alternative locations in India and abroad.
However, Krivorizhstal was not the only option being explored by the company. Tata Steel had already announced that apart from Ukraine, it was looking for opportunities in China and Singapore.