(Finance) – The negotiations for the exit of ArcelorMittal from the former Ilva and the week that opens will be decisive. The lawyers of Invitalia and Arcelor Mittal, with 38 and 62% of the capital respectively, are working in an attempt to define a consensual separation that would lead to a soft exit for the French-Indian giant. Palazzo Chigi indicated Wednesday 17 January as the deadline for negotiations, While There will be a new meeting with the unions on Thursday where perhaps the path to follow will be definitively clarified. Mittal’s agreed exit, most likely through compensation, would allow the parties to avoid slipping into a long legal dispute.
The compensation for the farewell of the Indian multinational to Italian steel could be around 400 million. A figure which, according to what La Repubblica reports, Invitalia could pay to purchase the 40% share that will be owned by A. Mittal following the conversion into equity of the 680 million paid by the State at the beginning of 2023. The reference base would be there valuation of the company made by Enrico Laghi and verified by Kpmg at the end of 2020, on the occasion of the entry of Invitalia. At that time the value of the shares was 1.050 billion. Furthermore, the government will have to evaluate thetotal disbursement in the event of an agreement for Mittal’s exit, because in addition to the 400 million for Adi’s share there would be another 3-400 million to be injected into the company to relaunch production and around 950 million to buy back the plants also considering that 700 million they should be returned, as loans that the Mef had paid to the first administration.
Consensual or not, the divorce of the Italian State with Arcelor Mittal will be a turning point but not an arrival point in the troubled affair of the former Ilva factories. The difficult part will come later, when the government will have to find private capital to guarantee a solid and competitive future for Acciaierie d’Italia. The objective is not, in fact, that of permanent nationalization: the State will take control of the company only to ferry it towards a new corporate structure. Among the names circulated in recent days, in addition to Vulcan Green Steel And Metinvestthat of also becomes insistent Arvedi group. “It is impossible not to think of the largest producer of flat products in Italy, which is Arvedi” he stated in an interview with Corriere della Sera on president of Federacciai Antonio Gozzi. Already in 2017 Arvedi with Jindal, Cdp and Delfin had submitted an offer for the Taranto hub, also participating in the ArcelorMittal’s rival consortium “but – says Gozzi – the French-Indians were preferred. Because, following European parameters, more importance was given to the offer than to the industrial plan”. The Arvedi group closed 2022 with 7 billion 756 million in revenues and a net result of 640 million euros. The main company, Acciaieria Arvedi, produces flat carbon steel products and recorded 3.6 billion in revenues, an increase of 20% compared to 2021. But there are many Italians in the sector with the ability to intervene: from Venetian steelworks to the Marcegaglia group.
Meanwhile the steel giant Arcelor Mittal has reached an agreement with the government of France to invest 1.8 billion euros overall on the reduction of CO2 emissions of theGrande-Synthe plant, in Dunkirk. The agreement concerns one of the largest industrial sites in the Hexagon and is part of the initiatives that also exploit the French nuclear energy park. The announcement of the agreement between the French government and the Indian steel giant came from the French Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire who in turn, as part of the plan to reduce the carbon produced by the industry, will be able to reach invest a further 850 million accompanying the investments actually made by the private group. This money will allow two electric furnaces and a direct iron reduction unit to be built in Dunkirk, which is considered one of the 50 most polluting French industrial sites. Activation is scheduled for 2027. It is the first step towards production of carbon-free steel. These plants powered by electricity and gas, and possibly hydrogen, will replace coal-fired furnaces. Co2 emissions are expected to fall by 4.4 million tonnes per year. Arcelor, the minister further added, will sign a letter of intent with Edf (Electricite de France) for a long-term stable and competitive supply contract for nuclear energy.