India’s NCLT OKs ArcelorMittal’s Resolution Plan for Essar Steel

Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal’s dream of re-entering the Indian steel market is about to come true.
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After almost a year of legal tussles, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Ahmedabad bench, gave the green light to ArcelorMittal’s resolution plan for the debt-laden Essar Steel Ltd. The latter was put on the block after lenders asked the court to recover about U.S. $7 billion in dues.
The approximately U.S. $5.9 billion acquisition of the distressed plant, though, has run into one more road block.
Essar Steel Ltd’s ex-promoter Prashant Ruia and two other directors of the erstwhile board of the steelmaker have approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to thwart the move.
Standard Chartered Bank, a dissenting bank among the Committee of Creditors (CoC) of Essar Steel, has challenged the NCLT’s order.
The bank’s contention was the resolution plan approved by the CoC of Essar Steel favored the secured creditors.
In late January, the same Tribunal had rejected a full debt settlement proposal by shareholders of Essar Steel, ruling that the offer violated Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which says the promoters can reclaim a company from bankruptcy by paying full settlement, but not after others have submitted their expressions of interest.
This is one more hurdle that Mittal will now have to overcome to take over the mill, which boasts an annual capacity of 10 million metric tons.
A joint venture between Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. with ArcelorMittal has offered an upfront cash settlement of about U.S. $ 1 billion and a multimillion-dollar capital infusion as part of the acquisition process.
ArcelorMittal SA is the world’s largest steel company by volume but doesn’t have a steel plant yet in India. Once the formal acquisition is done, Essar Steel’s capacity will immediately make ArcelorMittal the fourth-biggest player in India. The Essar plant is operating at much lower capacity; experts say will need a large influx of funds to run at capacity.
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ArcelorMittal has a presence in 60 countries and an industrial footprint in 18 countries. Mittal has made several attempts in the past to get into the Indian market, but none bore fruit.
In 2010, the company signed an agreement with the Karnataka provincial government to set up a 6 million ton per annum capacity plant, but the land acquisition process itself has taken about eight years.