By Inti Landauro
PARIS--The French government has found a potential buyer ready
to invest up to 400 million euros ($518.5 million) in a steel
plant, at the centre of a dispute between the owner ArcelorMittal
(MT) and Paris, the industry minister said Wednesday.
"We have a buyer, a steel maker, not a financier, who wants to
invest his own money and is ready to invest as much as EUR400
million in the facilities to overhaul them," Arnaud Montebourg told
a hearing in parliament, in relation to the Florange plant in
eastern France that the world's largest steelmaker plans to
partially close. He didn't name the potential buyer.
The row over the fate of two blast furnaces at the complex has
escalated in the past few days, with the ArcelorMittal saying it
will shut them down permanently, having lain idle for more than a
year, on Saturday unless the government finds a buyer for them. The
company has said it wants to close them, eliminating 600 jobs in
the process, because they are too small and far from raw-material
sources. The government has threatened to temporarily nationalize
the whole site if ArcelorMittal insists on closing down the
furnaces.
Mr Montebourg said the government wants any such nationalization
to have no impact on the country's public finances. The government
would use stakes it owns in other companies to finance the
nationalization, he said.
The government has found a buyer for the whole site, which also
includes facilities manufacturing steel products, mainly for use in
the car industry. ArcelorMittal plans to keep these facilities.
French President Francois Hollande and Lakshmi Mittal,
ArcelorMittal's chief executive, met Tuesday evening to discuss the
matter. Mr. Montebourg said the talks were "tough and firm."
Write to Inti Landauro at Inti.landauro@dowjones.com
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