Dallas, Texas 10/18/2013 (Financialstrend) – The world’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal (ADR) (NYSE:MT) has a $28.36 billion market capitalization. It has been into heavy deal making with a host of smaller steel manufactures over the past 30 days. The overall impact of this hectic M& A activity has had a positive impact on the stock of this steel maker. In the past week, the share has appreciated by close to 12.4% and by an impressive 25% in the last 90 days.
A quick run through of the list of purchases and sale agreement the steel maker has signed off on makes interesting reading.
On October 8, ArcelorMittal (ADR) (NYSE:MT) sold its 6.66% stake in Turkey based Erdemir. It rose close to $267 million in cash from this deal. A day previously, on October 7 ArcelorMittal had signed off on a strategic agreement with Algeria’s state owned steel producer Sider. ArcelorMittal has agreed to bring its total holdings in the company to down to 49% from its previous holding of 70%. As part of the deal Sider will increase its stake in Annaba steel plant to 51%. The end goal of this deal is to raise production to 2.2 million metric tons per annum by pumping in $763 million. The target date for doubling the current steel production has been set for 2017. Earlier, on September 27, ArcelorMittal had entered into preliminary talks with South African company to resolve long pending pricing dispute. Simultaneously the two companies are also attempting to enter into new ore supply agreement.
Using the income from sale of property, ArcelorMIttal is attempting to reduce its net debt from $16.2 billion to $15 billion by end of this year. As of close of business on October 16, the share price of the steel firm had settled at $15.86 per share representing a 10% dip on its 52 week high valuation.
