On February 19, 2009, Europe's second largest steelmaker Corus Group, a subsidiary of India's Tata Steel, and Greek steel distributor and processor Elastron, formerly called Kalpinis-Simos, announced the inauguration of a new joint-venture service centre in Thessalonica, northern Greece, which will focus on strip and long products.
The fifty-fifty joint venture service centre, Tata Elastron SA, will serve the Greek, Balkan and other nearby markets. As well as investing in the land and buildings, Tata Elastron has installed two new cut-to-length lines, a new slitting line, a cold saw and a shot-blasting machine.
Elastron operates a large strip and long products distribution business near Athens. At the same location it also runs two composite panel lines in a fifty-fifty joint venture with Corus' Distribution & Building Systems (CD&BS) Division. Corus Distribution Europe, the partner in the Thessalonica JV, is part of this division.