[Ferro-Alloys.com]

 

Liberty Steel has won the bidding process for Hungarian steelmaker Dunaferr.

 

The company was the successful bidder through its subsidiary Liberty Steel Central Europe Kft, with a bid of €55mn ($60.5mn).

 

Dunaferr went into liquidation in December last year, after the Hungarian government amended its bankruptcy code to enable a sale of the asset.

 

Liberty and Naveen Jindal-affiliated company Vulcan Steel were the only bidders to progress to the last round of the process. Metinvest, Trasteel and Trinec Property were excluded in June for various reasons.

 

Liberty was seen as the frontrunner for the site, after it redirected coal to Dunaferr to keep the coke ovens running in December last year. The coking batteries had been ordered to shut at 06:00 local time (04:00 GMT) on 14 December, but Liberty sent trains carrying US Elk Creek, Czech CSM and Australian Hail Creek coal to the site.

 

It then continued to supply raw materials and was awarded a three-month tolling contract to operate the assets, which was renewed and expired at the end of June.

 

Dunaferr's rolling lines were expected to restart today after being idled last month — the rolling mill has a capacity of 2mn t/yr, but the steel mill was producing around a fifth of this, union sources told Argus.

 

Liberty originally started looking at the Dunaferr site in 2021, but talks went cold after its main lender, Greensill, collapsed.

 

"The addition of Dunaferr into the Liberty group, subject to the closing of the transaction and regulatory approval, will create significant positive operational and commercial synergies by linking Liberty's high-quality upstream businesses in Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic more closely with Dunaferr's high-quality downstream business for the benefit of customers across Hungary and Europe," Liberty parent company GFG said.