Former Ilva: CE Industries group also enters the race to rescue the company
CE Industries, a Czech industrial group, is the new entity that has come forward regarding the former Ilva, submitting an expression of interest to the administrators. The Minister for Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, announced yesterday, on the sidelines of the meeting in Rimini, that there is a new operator for the former Ilva. CE Industries is an industrial holding company operating mainly in Europe and North America. The sectors in which it operates include rail logistics, energy, mechanical engineering, recycling, steel and defence. Founded by entrepreneur Jaroslav Strnad, the company manages over 30 businesses and employs more than 3,100 staff, with a turnover exceeding 19 billion Czech korunas. The arrival of CE Industries joins the Indian steel group Jindal, the American fund Flacks Group and a consortium of Italian steelmakers including Arvedi, Marcegaglia, Duferco, Acciaierie Veneto and Eusider, the latter having joined the consortium in recent days.
The Italian consortium, led by Federacciai, which submitted its expression of interest before 15 August following contacts and meetings with Minister Urso, has now been granted access to the data room. Through this, the Italian steelmakers will gain a detailed understanding of the company’s current situation. As regards the former Ilva, Italian industrialists are aiming to acquire only the cold-rolling section – rolling mills, strip mills, strip finishing lines, etc. – that is, the Taranto steelworks sector downstream of the hot-rolling section. The hot-rolling area, comprising coking plants, blast furnaces and steelworks, is due to cease operations by the end of October as a result of a decree by the Milan Court of Appeal, which ordered the shutdown on the grounds that fine particulate matter and asbestos are harmful to the health of workers and citizens, as well as to the environment. The Court’s decree has already been challenged before the Court of Cassation by Ilva, which is under special administration – the company that owns the plants – whilst Acciaierie d’Italia, also under special administration, is responsible for managing them. Ilva, under special administration, is also preparing an application for a stay of execution to be lodged with the Court of Appeal in relation to the decree. This is because the application for a stay of execution would be examined by the judges more quickly than the ruling of the Court of Cassation, not least because appealing against the decree to the Supreme Court does not suspend its enforceability. Acciaierie d’Italia is also preparing a similar legal move.
Meanwhile, the Indian group Jindal has, in recent weeks, revised its bid, stating that it is willing to take over the hot section as well as the cold section, with a view to assessing what to do with them in light of the ruling by the Milan courts.
At the meeting in Rimini, Urso said that, regarding the former Ilva site, there is ‘a challenge we must tackle together to prevent a legitimate decision by another institution – the Milan Court of Appeal – from becoming a social and economic time bomb for the entire region. “We need the utmost sense of responsibility from everyone, and the involvement of all institutions,” he continued. “In September – in just a few days’ time – the Ilva working group, which has been in place at Palazzo Chigi for two years now and is coordinated by Under-Secretary Alfredo Mantovano, will be convened. We will address both the progress of the ongoing international tender process for the allocation of the plants and, above all, the investments that will enable Taranto to produce the ‘green steel’ that is already being produced in the rest of the country.”
“For a year now,” the minister noted, “our ministry has also had a ‘Taranto Working Group’, which examines proposals from dozens of companies intending to make further productive investments in that area,” stressed Urso, who added that ‘there are many sectors, including shipbuilding – which therefore relies to some extent on steelworks – as well as many other sectors involving green technology or artificial intelligence, and numerous innovative sectors’.
