Mr. Igor Syry, general director of Ukrainian iron ore and steel producer Metinvest Holding (Metinvest), has stressed that the company has divided its merger and acquisition (M&A) interests according to three main categories.
Firstly, the group is very interested in the acquisition of steel producing and iron ore assets in Ukraine and the CIS where the obvious synergies are most likely in terms of expansion of its raw material base.
The second category of Metinvest's interests focuses on the acquisition of steel rolling capacities in Europe, North America and maybe long rolled steel producing facilities in the Middle East.
The third category aims at the acquisition of raw material assets, especially coal assets. Mr. Syry underlined the problem of the reduction of Ukrainian domestic coking coal production, as well as the inward orientation of the Russian domestic coking coal market. In this context, the Ukrainian steel mills have no choice but to acquire coking coal assets in countries such as Canada, USA, and Australia.