Bidding war: Arcelor increases bid for Essar Steel to Rs 42,000 crore

ArcelorMittal has agreed to make a bigger offer of Rs 42,000 crore for the debt-laden Essar Steel, following negotiations with lenders to the company, senior bankers have indicated to FE. So far, the offer included a Rs 35,000-crore upfront payment to lenders apart from a Rs 8,000-crore equity infusion into the company.

The revised offer agreed to between the Lakshmi Mittal-promoted ArcelorMittal and bankers now includes an upfront payment of Rs 39,500 crore to bankers.

In addition, should ArcelorMittal get control of Essar Steel, it will return to the lenders approximately Rs 2,500 crore of working capital, a senior banker at a state-run bank that has exposure to Essar Steel, explained.

Apart from this, ArcelorMittal will stick to its earlier offer to make an equity infusion worth Rs 8,000 crore into Essar Steel. Any payments to operational creditors and to workers will be over and above this.

Only last week, in adherence to the Supreme Court’s ruling, ArcelorMittal approved a payment of Rs 7,469 crore to financial creditors of Uttam Galva and KSS Petron to clear overdue debts so that its April offer for Essar Steel can be considered eligible.

The latest offer that was put to vote by lenders on Tuesday is a revision to the second round of bids that lenders and the resolution professional Satish Kumar Gupta had called for back in April, after the first round of bids submitted by ArcelorMittal and Numetal, a company co-owned by Russia’s VTB Bank, were found to be ineligible.

Essar Steel, which owes lenders close to Rs 49,000 crore, is currently undergoing corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and is one of the first 12 bad loan accounts identified by the Reserve Bank of India for immediate reference under the IBC.

Essar Steel