The Ilva steel group (www.gruppoilva.com/it) has received bids from two consortiums for its loss-making plant near Taranto in southern Italy, two years after the government took it over to save thousands of jobs (and clean up the polluted site).

The first bid came from Arcelor Mittal (the world’s largest steel maker) together with Italy’s Marcegaglia (a family-run group that says it would invest 2.3 billion euros and boost production at Europe’s biggest steel plant by output capacity).

CEO Antonio Marcegaglia said in a statement: “It has been sad to watch the decline of this great company in recent years; we are excited to have the chance to contribute to a new renaissance of this Italian steel icon.” Aditya Mittal, chief financial officer of Arcelor Mittal, said: “The plant is lacking capacity and is in a state of disrepair, but it has the potential to become one of the lowest-cost and most efficient facilities in Europe.”


The other consortium is an alliance between: Delfin, the holding company of Italian sun-glasses tycoon Leonardo Del Vecchio; Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Italy’s sovereign-wealth fund; domestic steel-maker Arvedi; and Sajjan Jindal’s Indian group JSW Steel. The government is expected to make a decision by the end of April.

Ilva was placed under court administration in 2013 after magistrates seized 8.1 billion euros of assets belonging to its former owners, the Riva family, amid allegations that toxic emissions were causing abnormally high rates of cancer; the government took over administration of the business in 2015.

With two of its five furnaces closed, the plant produced 5.8 million tonnes of steel last year, significantly less than the 8 million tonnes it is authorised to produce. However, this was an increase of more than 1 million tonnes from 2015 and helped to reduce the plant’s operating loss.

Mr Jindal has said that his aim is to increase Ilva’s annual production to 12 million tonnes within a three- to five-year period. Massimo Mucchetti of the Democratic party, who is president of the Industry Committee in the Italian Senate, said: “The Jindal group has a more ambitious programme in terms of investment and in terms of production, while the Arcelor Mittal bid appears more defensive in nature. They want to avoid the entry of a dangerous new competitor in Europe.”