'Corus acquisiton not an ego clash with CSN'

Kolkata, Jan 31: Tata Steel's proposed acquisition of Corus to become the fifth largest steel manufacturers in the world through a lengthy bidding process in London till early today, "does not reflect any clash of ego with the Brazilian steel giant CSN", claims Tata Steel Chairman Ratan Tata.

Paricipating in a nationwide press conference through video conferencing facility from Mumbai today, only hours after the largest foreign deal in financial terms by any Indian company was struck at a record 6.2 billion pounds, Mr Tata, flanked by Tata Steel Managing Director B Muthuraman, categorically denied that there was any ego clash at any point of time with the Brazilian steel giant Companhia Siderurgica Nacional(CSN) to take over the absolute owership of the Corus.

"Our bid to acquire Corus must be looked at as Tata Steel's sincere efforts to go global in a big way", Mr Tata said replying to a query adding that after clinching the deal by offering 608 pence per share against CSN's last offer of 603 pence was just in consonence with the Tata Steel's decision to upgrade its production capacity to more than 21 million tonnes per annum through acquisition.

It was nothing but a perfect business decision of the company to spread its wings far beyond the national boundary, Mr Tata said adding that simlarly several foreign multi-nationlas were also making bids to acquire Indian companies to take full advantage of the globalisation of the world economy.

However, because of the technical failure, it was not clear that following the acquisition what would be the total production of Tata Steel by 2015 from the present around 22 million tonnes which included 18 million tonne capacity of the Corus.

Incidentally, Tata Steel Jamshedpur plant presently produces around five million tonnes of finished steel following the recent upgradation of its production capacity through a multi million dollar modernisation programme.

UNI