TPT May 2007

From the AmericaS

But it is not clear that the newly collegial Republicans will find Democrats responsive. Mr Rangel said that they remained highly skeptical about signs of Republican flexibility on trade issues and that he had not seen anything “acceptable to a broad number of members” on his side. He added, “The question will be whether, at the end of the day, things really have changed. So far, the answer would be no.”

operations, diverse revenue streams, and high margins. From day one, the combined company is a global leader in the important rails market, with a strong presence in the two largest railway countries.” Mr Frolov said that the Russian-American combination could expect to benefit from “vertical integration synergies” as well as improved margins from access to lucrative downstream markets and a reliable source of Russian slabs to support an already low US cost base. The forward-looking program shifts the emphasis away from what it was in November 2006, when Evraz, partly owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, agreed to buy Oregon Steel for $2.3 billion. Then, the big news was that this would, if it materialized, be the biggest-ever purchase in the US by a Russian company. The aggressive Evraz bid for all of the American steel maker was frankly intended to secure a foothold in the US and – almost incidentally, it seemed – to create the world’s largest producer of rail tracks and wheels. But, even that early in the process, it was not lost on industry observers that the purchase would raise Evraz to tenth place among world steel makers, ahead of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp AG. Bloomberg News observed that Russian steel producers and their counterparts in India and Brazil, bolstered by rising stock values, were looking to enhance crude-steel processing in North America and Europe to make such higher-value products as pipe and tube for the oil and gas industry. • Al Breach, chief strategist with UBS AG in Moscow, told Bloomberg in November that the Evraz-Oregon Steel

Steel Russia’s Evraz completes acquisition of Oregon Steel Mills

Evraz Group SA, the biggest steelmaker in Russia, announced completion of its purchase of Oregon Steel Mills Inc by means of a “short-form merger” of the Portland-based steel maker with Evraz’s wholly owned subsidiary Oscar Acquisition Merger Sub Inc. The transaction followed on a January 12 announcement of the acceptance of an all-cash offer by Oscar to purchase all outstanding shares of Oregon Steel common stock. Payment has been made for all tendered shares. Alexander Frolov, chairman and chief executive officer of Evraz, was ambitious as well as ebullient in assessing the prospective fortunes of the combined company in the market for rails. He said, “We welcome Oregon Steel’s employees into the Evraz family, and look forward to jointly building a world-class company with efficient

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