£6bn bid by Tata Steel wins all-night auction of steelmaker Corus

Tata Steel has won the spoils at the end of the highly-charged, through-the-night auction of Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker.

The takeover panel, which was running the two-way auction, announced that the final offer of 608p-a-share was enough to win the day for the Indian bidder. It values Corus at £5.8bn.

Tata’s rival, the Brazilian steelmaker CSN, had bid up to 603p. The rules were that the bid had to be a minimum of 5p-a-share higher than the latest counter-offer.

The takeover creates the world’s fifth-largest steel group.

Tata Steel director JJ Irani told India’s NDTV that from a small player, Tata will now become a big player in the world market.

Tata’s shareholders showed signs of nervousness about the size of the bid as Tata’s share price slipped 6% on early trading.

The first bid for Corus was launched by Tata back in October, at 455p a share. Several bids later and there was a 515p-a-share offer on the table, this time from CSN. A lot of hot air followed and the lack of anything firm led to a stalemate situation which was broken by the takeover panel’s decision to invoke the rarely used auction process.

Both Tata and CSN agreed to the 10-hour auction as a means of settling their contest, and the action got underway at 4.30pm last night.

Corus has over 47,000 employees. Of these there are 24,000 working in the group’s UK plants which are in Port Talbot, Scunthorpe and Rotherham.