Mittal Steel Co., the world's biggest steelmaker, won an auction for Ukraine's VAT Kryvorizhstal with a bid of 24.2 billion hryvnia ($4.8 billion), more than twice as much as the minimum price set by President Viktor Yushchenko's government.
Mittal beat Arcelor SA and Ukraine's LLC Smart Group for control of the Krivoi Rog-based government-owned steelmaker in an auction in Kiev shown live on state television today. It's the second time Ukraine auctioned the mill after a rigged 2004 sale under Leonid Kuchma sold the company for $800 million.
"This is a huge amount of money and it shows how unjust the first sale was,'' said Timothy Ash, managing director at Bear Stearns International. The winning bid represents 6.8 percent of Ukraine's probable 2005 gross domestic product, he said.
Mittal gains a mill in southern Ukraine that makes 7 million tons of steel a year from its own iron ore and coal, after losing out earlier this month in the auction for 49 percent of Turkey's biggest steelmaker. The Rotterdam-based company is expanding in emerging markets to increase capacity and strengthen its bargaining power with carmakers and suppliers of iron ore and coal as Mittal vies to dominate the world's $760 billion steel market.
Mittal beat Arcelor SA and Ukraine's LLC Smart Group for control of the Krivoi Rog-based government-owned steelmaker in an auction in Kiev shown live on state television today. It's the second time Ukraine auctioned the mill after a rigged 2004 sale under Leonid Kuchma sold the company for $800 million.
"This is a huge amount of money and it shows how unjust the first sale was,'' said Timothy Ash, managing director at Bear Stearns International. The winning bid represents 6.8 percent of Ukraine's probable 2005 gross domestic product, he said.
Mittal gains a mill in southern Ukraine that makes 7 million tons of steel a year from its own iron ore and coal, after losing out earlier this month in the auction for 49 percent of Turkey's biggest steelmaker. The Rotterdam-based company is expanding in emerging markets to increase capacity and strengthen its bargaining power with carmakers and suppliers of iron ore and coal as Mittal vies to dominate the world's $760 billion steel market.
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