After more than a year and three months that the new shareholders of the steel company Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) requested the Mexican government for its support to refinance around $400 million of debt related to the public administration, over the weekend the President of Mexico, said that his successor as president will solve “the problem,” which is why the paralysis of the steel company will remain at least until next October.
“With Claudia, what this region needs will be attended to, that there is work. The problem of Altos Hornos de México has to be resolved so that there is employment,” said President André Manuel López Obrador on a work tour in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.
President López will conclude his six-year term of government on September 30 and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the president elected in the last elections, will take office on October 1. Although the new Mexican Congress (dominated by the political party of the current president) will begin sessions on September 1.
Since March of last year, AHMSA's main shareholder, Alonso Ancira Elizondo, signed the sale of the controlling stake of the steel company to investors led by the New York private equity fund manager Argentem Creek Partners.
“We did not achieve the purpose of rescuing AHMSA (during her six-year presidential term)… Claudia (Sheinbaum) is going to give continuity (to the rescue). We have already managed to untangle everything,” said the President of the Republic in his speech 89 miles north of the AHMSA facilities, a company paralyzed by insolvency since January of last year.
Information sources directly related to AHMSA told SteelOrbis that the debt restructuring requested from the López Obrador government for around $400 million (taxes, gas, electricity, social security, among others) had not been granted, at least until the 28th. of May.
On that date, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance, Wilhem Hagelsieb Garza, and the person in charge of the AHMSA restructuring process in the federal government, the head of the Federal Prosecutor's Office, Grisel Galeano García, were asked for an interview to find out of the advances. However, there was no response to the request sent by email.
AHMSA is one of the largest steel companies in Mexico, with an annual production capacity of 5.5 million metric tons (mt) of liquid steel through blast furnaces and an electric arc furnace. As of 2022, the most recent public data, the company had a payroll of 13,905 people, total assets of $2.15 billion and total liabilities of $2.99 billion.
Without mentioning the name of Alonso Ancira, the president of Mexico said “he has already delivered all the shares (...), and there are already conditions so that this source of work can be recovered.”