Aditya Mittal will take over as the chief executive officer (CEO) of ArcelorMittal from his father, said the steelmaker on Thursday about an executive who has the company’s acquisitions
Aditya Mittal is now president, chief financial officer (CFO) and chief executive officer (CEO) ArcelorMittal Europe. His father Lakshmi Mittal, who founded the company in 1976 and is currently the chairman and CEO, will become executive chairman of the company.
Lakshmi Mittal will continue to lead the board of directors and work together with the CEO and management team; Aditya Mittal will run the company day to day.
Lakshmi Mittal, said, “Having achieved some key strategic targets, this seems like the right moment to transition to executive chairman and the board unanimously agree that Aditya Mittal is the natural and right choice to be the company’s chief executive.”
“We have worked closely together since he joined the company in 1997, indeed in recent years we have effectively been managing the company together,” he added.
Those who know Aditya Mittal say that he has been spearheading the company’s acquisitions for a while now; in 2006, he had initiated and led Mittal Steel’s offer for Arcelor, creating the world’s first 100 million tonne plus steel company.
In India, ArcelorMittal’s major entry into steelmaking with the acquisition of Essar Steel – jointly with Nippon Steel – under the insolvency law, in 2019, was largely led by him. It was Mittal, who led the due diligence and is now the chairman of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India).
ArcelorMittal reported better than expected numbers in the fourth quarter numbers (the company follows a January to December fiscal) with EBITDA at $1.7billion, almost double 4Q'19 level.
A challenging market environment, however, saw steel shipments decline in 2020 by 18.2 per cent and a net loss of $0.7 billion.
The company ended 2020 with gross debt of $12.3 billion and net debt of $6.4 billion, which is the lowest level since the 2006 merger with Arcelor. The board also proposed to restart dividend to shareholders at $0.30 a share.
ArcelorMittal on Thursday gave a brief insight into AM/NS India’s numbers as well. AM/NS India achieved a record production at an annualized rate of 7.5 million tonne; the business achieved $0.7 billion EBITDA in FY20 (4Q’20 $274 million), which exceeded the cash needs of the business.
During a media call, Aditya Mittal outlined the growth plans and said, “In terms of our growth plans, immediately, we are commissioning a pelletising activity bringing our capability to 20 million tonnes – in Paradip. Also, we are focused on increasing production from 7.5 million tonne to 8.5 million. We have projects underway which increases design capacity.”
The medium-term plan is to take output to 14 million tonnes.
On rising steel prices, that has been in focus in India, Mittal said, responding to queries that, in India, demand levels had come back much stronger than 2020.
He also pointed out that another reason behind increase in steel prices was the price of raw materials, which was also up.
Iron ore iron ore has also increased quite substantially and it is much higher than where it was in 2020.
“So, the cost of raw materials is rising and that causes impact on steel pricing. It is a combination of how quickly demand is coming back, supply is ramping up, but our costs are increasing and in particular the impact of iron ore. And that is also true in the Indian context where we have seen even domestic prices of iron ore increase quite substantially,” said Mittal.
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