AM/NS India has officially taken over Uttam Galva with its sole downstream facility at Khopoli in Maharashtra and the latter has been renamed AM/NS Khopoli.
It is heard all the employees sitting in Uttam House in Mumbai will be shifted to the Khopoli facility.
The Khopoli plant has a capacity of 1 mnt. Facilities include cold rolling of HR coils and galvanizing capacity of 750,000 tonnes per annum. The facility also does value addition of colour-coating on CR or galvanized coils. However, the plant’s production gradually dropped as did Uttam Galva’s export volumes and eventually it landed in the National Company Law Tribunal in 2017-18, the year when ArcelorMittal was poised to acquire Essar Steel in India. ArcelorMittal had to drop its 29% stake in Uttam Galva since the law required that a bidding company cannot have a stake in any company that has gone to NCLT. ArcelorMittal eventually acquired Essar Steel.
ArcelorMittal has deposited the amount pending from Uttam Galva’s side in the latter’s account – for clearing the NCLT case. Uttam Galva used to undertake job work of what was then Essar Steel. Post-its acquisition by ArcelorMittal, the job work continued. Around 50,000-60,000 tonnes of cold rolled steel is produced under jobwork for AM/NS India.
Recently, AM Mining Pvt Ltd, part of ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel joint venture, completed the acquisition of Uttam Galva Steels. Completion of the acquisition process follows the recent approval by NCLT, Mumbai, of a resolution plan of Uttam Galva, submitted by AM Mining under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
Earlier, on October 14, 2022, the government gave the green signal to AM Mining for the INR 4,000-crore takeover of Uttam Galva.
It may be recalled that in October 2020, NCLT had admitted an insolvency petition filed by the State Bank of India against Uttam Galva. In June 2021, the lenders unanimously approved the resolution plan submitted by Lakshmi Mittal-promoted ArcelorMittal Group. Others who had submitted expressions of interest for acquiring the company included JSW Steel and Jindal Steel & Power.
The overall claim on Uttam Galva was about INR 20,650 crore, of which almost INR 9,400 crore is owed to financial creditors and INR 11,255 crore to operational creditors.
AM/NS has undertaken the acquisition under AM Mining and the acquired entity will not be a subsidiary but will be merged with AM/NS.
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