JSW Steel has won the approval of the National Company Law Tribunal to acquire value-added steel maker Asian Colour Coated Ispat Pvt Ltd (ACCIPL).
The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sajjan Jindal-promoted JSW, presented a resolution plan entailing Rs 1,550 crore for the Khopoli, Maharashtra-based unit. The principal bench of the NCLT, Delhi, approved the plan with certain modifications on Monday. This is the third acquisition by JSW from the insolvency courts. In 2018, the company’s plan for integrated steel maker Monnet Ispat was approved.
The Monnet proposal was placed in partnership with AION Capital, where AION was a majority partner, with a deal size of Rs 2,457 crore. It also made a small acquisition of Vardhaman Industries in 2019 for Rs 63.5 crore.
The ACCIPL deal will give JSW access to a million tonnes of value-added products such as colour-coated sheets and coils and galvanised corrugated sheets.
The Pradeep-Agarwal promoted secondary steel maker has a large land bank at Khopoli and Bawal in Haryana, which JSW can use to scale up its production.
Industry sources say the product line would bolster JSW’s presence in the western market and help it compete with AM/NS India (formerly Essar Steel). The basic raw material for ACCIPL is hot rolled coil, which JSW can supply from the Dolvi plant in Maharashtra.
The ACCIPL facility would add to JSW’s overall capacity of cold rolled value-added products as it also makes colour-coated sheets/coils and galvanised sheets at its Vijaynagar plant in Karnataka.
The acquisition comes at a time benchmark prices for steel have gone up in the domestic market, backed by demand from the user industries, especially consumer durables and automobiles.
Frontline integrated steel makers had reported strong sales in the second quarter and the momentum is expected to continue in this quarter too. A buoyant market would help JSW to quickly turn around the asset.
JSW is also keen to close the acquisition of Bhushan Power and Steel — its biggest bet through the IBC route so far. The Rs 19,500-crore offer for the primary steel maker is now stuck in a legal logjam at the Supreme Court. The company is also in an early stage of making an offer for Gonterman Peipers (India).