The new head of Nippon Steel Corp. has pledged to push ahead with its $14.1 billion takeover of United States Steel Corp., a deal he says is vital to making the American company more competitive.
Nippon Steel is not considering alternative options and is focused on negotiations with the United Steelworkers union to gain their support for the purchase, the Tokyo-based company’s new president, Tadashi Imai, said at a news conference.
“There is not a company in the United States that can domestically produce the high-end automotive electrical steel sheets that we produce in our steel mills in Japan,” Imai said, in an interview conducted last week and available to release on Monday, when he formally assumed the top post.
This technology will be available to US Steel following the acquisition. “We have over 2,000 patents in North America alone, far more than other American steelmakers,” he said. “There is a lot we can do to strengthen US Steel.”
Imai’s remarks come at a sensitive time for the deal, whose prospects have been clouded by President Joe Biden’s insistence that US Steel should be “nationally owned and operated.” Biden has aligned himself with the union ahead of the presidential election in the fall, but risks upending relations with one of America’s staunchest allies in the process.
Biden will meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a summit in Washington on April 10. US Steel shareholders will meet two days later to discuss the Japanese offer.
Asked whether his company would consider changing the terms of the deal, perhaps offering to take a smaller stake, Imai said that would be the American company’s decision and not up to Nippon Steel to propose.
The previous chairman, Eiji Hashimoto, who launched the acquisition, is now president of Nippon Steel.