Gerdau purchases additional stake in Siderperú

Gerdau S.A. announced to shareholders and investors Thursday that it has won the bid for 324,327,847 shares in Empresa Siderúrgica del Perú (Siderperú), which represents 32.84 percent of the company's total capital stock. The bid for this stake was made in a public sale offering of shares owned by Sider Corp S.A. The total price for the shares totaled $40.5 million. In June 2006, Gerdau purchased 50 percent of Siderperú's stock plus one share. Gerdau now owns 83.27 percent of Siderperú's total capital stock. Siderperú is Peru's largest steel company, with annual sales of approximately 360,000 metric tons of finished long and flat products.