IMPORTANT BAFFINLAND NEWS - Who is ArcelorMittal?
DID News Alert May 10, 2012. I thought I would shed a little light on who the owner of ArcelorMittal is, the company that owns Baffinland. The chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal is Lakshimi Mittal. According to Forbes magazine, he is the 21st richest person in the world and the 47th most powerful. He has a net worth of $20.7 billion dollars.
He founded the Mittal Steel Company in 1976 in Calcutta, India. In 2006 the Mittal Steel Company merged with Arcelor, a Luxembourg-based steel company, to create ArcelorMittal. The revenue of Arcelor at the time of the merger was of € 32.6 billion, and Mittal Steel bid €40.4 per share for the company. Now after the takeover, ArcelorMittal has become by far the largest steelmaker in the world, with a revenue of $93.973 billion US dollars in 2011. It is estimated that ArcelorMittal produces 10% of the world’s steel.
Lakshimi Mittal personally owns about 40% of the shares and voting shares of the company. The company’s official headquarters is Luxembourg but Mittal’s son Aditya Mittal, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the company, has stated that the company is actually run in London.
ArcelorMittal has mines all around the world. It has fallen under strong criticism in the past, especially relating to poor working conditions and catastrophic environmental disasters in Mittal mines in Kazakhstan, Romania and Ireland. Here is a link to an article on these accusations: http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/articles/Lakshimi-Mittal-mittal-arcelormittal-wealthiest-person/10/21/2010/id/30619
Recently the company has been struggling with some of its new projects. Multiple projects in India have been stalled because of local opposition, arguments over land ownership and acquisition, and environmental concerns. The company projects such issues to delay the development of these mines by five to ten years. India contributes about a third of ArcelorMittal’s total steel production. The construction of a large steel plant in Brazil has also been stalled.
The company has stated that due to these recent problems, they have decided to put much more focus on new mines. Their main project and investment now is the Baffinland Iron Ore project, in which they have invested $590 million dollars. In their minds, the Baffinland project will allow them to reduce their increasing debt and increase the value of their shares and investment rating, which has been going down.
It seems as though ArcelorMittal has a lot riding on this mine, and a lot to loose if the project is stalled.
Another interesting article on ArcelorMittal: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/arcelormittal-sees-india-plans-stalled-for-years_701846.html
To the left (under 'attached files') are PDF files of the two articles linked earlier
