Major Chinese steelmaker Baosteel plans to acquire Baosteel-Nippon Steel Automotive Steel Sheets Co., Ltd. (BNA), ending a 20-year cooperative operation with Japanese steel producer Nippon Steel.
On July 23, Baosteel announced that its board of directors had passed a resolution according to which it plans to invest RMB 1.758 billion in acquiring 50 percent equity of BNA. Following this acquisition, BNA will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baosteel, while the value of the acquisition will be determined on the basis of the appraisal of the value of BNA’s net assets as filed with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of China.
Baosteel has an annual capacity of 12.0 million mt of automotive steel sheet, while BNA’s automotive steel sheet capacity amounts to 2.2 million mt, including 900,000 mt of cold rolled steel sheets and 1.3 million mt of hot dip galvanized sheets per year.
At the very beginning, Nippon Steel held 38 percent equity in BNA, while in 2011 its acquired a further 12 percent equity in BNA from another shareholder, ArcelorMittal, with its stake in BNA rising to 50 percent.