Nippon Steel's new head has vowed to push ahead with the company's $14.1 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, which he says is essential to making the U.S. company more competitive.
Nippon Steel is not considering alternatives and is focusing on negotiating with the United Steelworkers union to gain support for the acquisition, said Tadashi Imai, the Tokyo-based company's newly appointed president. He spoke at a press conference.
“There is no company in the United States that can domestically produce the high-grade electrical steel sheets for automobiles that we produce at our Japanese steel mills,” Imai said in an interview conducted last week and to be released on Monday. He officially took over the top job.
This technology will be available to US Steel following the acquisition. “We have more than 2,000 patents in North America alone, far more than any other American steel manufacturer,” he said. “There's a lot we can do to strengthen U.S. Steel.”
Imai's comments come at a sensitive time for the deal, with its prospects clouded by President Joe Biden's insistence that U.S. Steel “should be domestically owned and operated.” Biden is aligning himself with labor unions in the run-up to the fall presidential election, but risks upsetting relations with one of America's staunchest allies in the process.
Biden is scheduled to meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a summit in Washington on April 10, followed by a gathering of U.S. Steel shareholders two days later to discuss Japan's bid.
Asked if he would consider changing the terms of the deal, perhaps by lowering his stake, Imai said that would be a decision for the U.S. company and not something Nippon Steel would propose.
Eiji Hashimoto, the former president who engineered the takeover, is currently the chairman of Nippon Steel.
