May 21: Russia’s Severstal has made a $1.24 billion offer for US steel producer and distributor Esmark, days after the steelworkers union threatened to block a bid from India’s Essar to buy Esmark.
Esmark owns the Wheeling Pittsburgh mill in West Virginia with a steel capacity of 2.4 million tonnes a year, of which some 200,000 tonnes are tin mill products used in canmaking.
Chief executive of Severstal International, Gregory Mason, said: “We believe that it is critical to give Esmark’s stockholders a chance to decide for themselves and they will find Severstal’s proposal much more compelling than the Essar Steel transaction.”
