Arcelor

Arcelor S.A.

Steel solutions for a better world
Type	Société Anonyme
Industry	Steel
Fate	merged with Mittal Steel
Predecessor	Arbed (1911) Aceralia (1902) Usinor (1948)
Successor	ArcelorMittal (2006)
Founded	18 February 2002
Headquarters	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Products	Steel
Revenue	€ 32.611 billion (2005)
Number of employees	94,000
Website	www.arcelor.com

Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created by a merger of the former companies Aceralia (Spain), Usinor (France) and Arbed (Luxembourg) in 2002.

Arcelor is now part of ArcelorMittal.

Employing 310,000 employees in over 60 countries, it is a major player in all its main markets: automotive, construction, metal processing, primary transformation, household appliances, and packaging, as well as general industry. With total sales of over €30 billion, Arcelor is, by 2011, the world's largest steel manufacturer in terms of turnover.

It produces long steel products, flat steel products and inox-steel. In January 2006 Arcelor announced the acquisition of Dofasco, Canada's largest steel producer with an annual output of 4.4 million tons. After an intense bidding war against the German ThyssenKrupp, Arcelor had finally bid 5.6 billion Canadian dollars.

The company was the target of a takeover bid by its rival Mittal Steel on 27 January 2006. However, the bid resulted in substantial increase in Arcelor's share value. Two members of the board of Arcelor, Guillermo Ulacia and Jacques Chabanier also resigned suddenly. On 26 May 2006 Arcelor announced its intention to merge with Severstal. Since then several economists, media and shareholders have questioned the intentions of Arcelor in announcing its merger with Severstal due to a perceived opacity in the transaction. But on 25 June 2006, the Arcelor board decided to go ahead with the merger with Mittal Steel and scrapped plans for Severstal merger. The new company is now called "ArcelorMittal". Arcelor also paid Severstal €140 million as a "fine" for the fall-out of their failed talks. Lakshmi Mittal (owner of Mittal Steel) became the president and Joseph Kinsch (formerly Arcelor chairman) was appointed chairman of the new company till his retirement. Arcelor's merger with Mittal created the worldwide leader in the steel industry, increasing its bargaining power with suppliers and consumers. Mittal Steel has agreed to pay 40.37 euros a share to Arcelor, almost double the amount offered by Mittal last time.