Ispat International

Ispat International N.V. is a steel producing company with operations in Mexico, Trinidad, Canada, Germany, United states. The company is specialized in the integrated mini-mill process and has a wide range of flat & long steel products, including slabs & wire rods.

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, is the founder chairman of the Ispat Group. Born in Safalpur, India, he is reportedly the richest Indian and a “Forbes 100 Billionaire" is the mastermind of the Mittal family empire and new owner of Sparrows Point, has managed to move up from ownership of a single steel plant in Calcutta in 1976 to become the single largest owner of steel properties on the globe, valued at $30 billion.

Mittal (who does not discourage westerners from pronouncing his name “me-tal,” as in “The Metal King”) accomplished his alchemy by scooping up “distressed” mills in obscure corners of the world and turning them around through tough management practices. His quest to become the greatest steel tycoon in history hasn’t been hurt by his political connections in his adopted land of Britain or by the West’s economic policies that place a premium on privatization and make it easy for clever businessmen to transmute leaden public-sector assets into private gold.

Mittal moved to Calcutta when his father bought a small steel mill. Mittal worked at his father’s company, which he inherited. In Calcutta he also met his wife, Usha, the daughter of a moneylender, who would become a key adviser to the nascent tycoon.

Ispat was taken public in 1997 and traded on the Amsterdam and New York stock exchanges. Backed by investor cash, the Mittal-controlled company made its first foray into American steel in 1998 by acquiring Inland Steel, the sixth largest U.S. steelmaker.

By 2004, the Ispat/LNM empire spanned four continents and included steel works in 14 countries. Among them, Sidbec and Acufil (Canada); Hamburger Stadtwerk, Stadtwerk Ruhr, and Walzdraht Hochfeld (Germany); Unimetal, Trefileurope, and SMR (France); Ispat Shipping (UK); Polska Stal and Czestochowa (Poland); Nova Hut (Czech Republic); Annaba (Algeria); Caribbean Ispat (Trinidad); Ispat Mexicana (Mexico); Ispat Indo (Indonesia), Ispat Petrotub, Ispat Siderurgica, and Ispat Tepro (Romania); BH Steel and Zenica (Bosnia Herzegovina); and Ispat Iscor (a partnership in South Africa). The Ispat Group takes over the Iron & Steel Company of Trinidad and Tobago, Sidemgical Del Balsar SA, Mexico, and additional units in Canada, Germany and Ireland. For more information, visit the website at http://www.ispatind.com