Steel Analysis

The crude iron costs around the world are increasing. The main reason for this is the increase in the freight cost of these goods. The laded cost for the crude iron in India is around $200 per ton for the crude that is coming from Brazil and FOB is around $150. The freight costs for China is also very high reaching levels of around $180 laded cost for a ton of crude iron.

What does this high crude iron cost mean for the producers of steel? Crude iron being a significant raw material input for the steel producers would mean that the prices of steel must rise to meet the increase in the prices of crude iron. If this is not the case then the producer of steel would see a reduction in the margin that they generate.

According to Essar steel the prices of steel have not gone up significantly in the last one year but still their margins have not taken a huge hit. The prices for the crude iron have doubled but the steel prices have gone up only by around 16%. Essar is attributing the healthy margins that they are generating to the captive mines facility that they are having. This means that the captive mines that the steel companies are after does gives the companies a lot of stability in margins. No wonder why steel companies are running after the iron ores in India.

Corus Repurchasing Debt

Corus which was recently acquired by Indian Tata Steel is offering a share repurchase worth 800 million euro due in 2011. The company would buy back these bonds at 101% of the face value of the bonds. This means that they will be paying 101% + 1.375% (accumulated interest) for these bonds. The investors showed negative reaction to this because the face value of the bonds was at 106.5%, much lower than what was offered by Corus. Due to this the five-year credit default swaps on Corus rose 10 basis points to 133 basis points on the news. Credit default swap is a type of insurance where in case of default by the borrower the swap buyer will end up paying for the debt, which was unpaid. The credit derivative market is concerned that the credit default swaps would be useless if the investors redeem the underlying debt.

Corus Welcomes TATA

Finally TATA Steel ends up as the winner in the poker match between TATA Steel and CSN (Companhia Siderurgica Nacional)for Corus. It was very clear that TATA would bid aggresively and in the end they ended up paying 508 pence a share for Corus. Translating into 6.2 billion pounds or $ 12 billion. 30 percent higher than the initial offer made by TATA. For CSN it was second time in five years that it has failed to acquire Corus.

Valuation

The bid made by TATA Steel values the firm at 7.6 times the EBITDA of Corus. If the merger is compared to the $32 billion deal of Arcelor Mittal then the valuations seem overpriced. Arcelor was valued at 4.6 times its EBITDA. But if you look at valuation per mt then this deal could be considered a good bargain. According to TATA it would take arround 80% more capital to build up capacity and quality similar to Corus.

For two days after the merger TATA Steel shares were trading 12% lower. Now on 2nd feb it gained 1%. It shows that eventhough valuation for the merger was overvalued, tata did the right thing at the right time to acquire Corus(their bid was only 5 pence higher than CSN). In the short term TATA may face financial troubles due to overvaluations, but in long term this deal puts up the foundations which will make the company a 90 mt Steel company from the current post merger 28 mt. TATA would also have to overcome the task of integating close to 50,000 worker of the company spread accross UK and Neatherland.

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Tata, buy buy

Tata steel is continuing its buying spree after it announced its plans to buy the world’s eighth largest steel maker Corus for close to $ 8billion. We had earlier seen Lakshmi Mittal creating its steel emprire by aggressively taking over other companies. In the last two years Tata steel made its expansion plans clear by acquiring companies like Singapore’s Natsteel and Thailand’s Millinium Steel.

Tata Steel is the second largest steel company in India with production of 5 mt (million tonnes) next to SAIL (12 mt). With the asian acquisitions it nearly doubled its steel capacity. Corus is British based company with capacity of close to 18.2 mt. After the merger the combined entity would be the sixth largest steel company in the world Tata is currently 55th.

The Synergy

Tata is one of the most efficient produces of semi finished steel (a low margin player). Corus on the other hand produces higher value specialized steel mainly for auto companies; with operations mainly focused in the high margin European market. The plans are to produce semi finished steel at low cost in India and then supply it to Corus which will increase the margin of Corus.

Valuations Comparison

Tata is paying Corus close to 5.5 pound per share in cash to Corus, while the share price of Corus was around 4.80 to 3.90 range in last one year. The recent Arcelor Bid by Mittal steel valued the company at 5 times EBITDA while the valuations for Corus is around 8 times EBDITA. But on per ton production basis the valuation for Corus is $610 compared to $785 of Arcelor (20% lower). It is clear that Corus is less profitable compared to Arcelor; Tata believes profitability for the combined entity would improve.

The cash for the acquisition would be raised mainly from debt. Corus and Tata Steel have low debt to net-worth ratio of 20% and 30%. Main concern here would be repayment because Corus is only starting to be profitable; between 2000 and 2003 it made losses close to $ 4 billion. And the synergy that Tata is looking for from its new plant its Orisa and Jharkhand won’t start operation till 2010.