Tata Steel sells Singapore unit NatSteel – Times of India

Tata Steel sells Singapore unit NatSteel - Times of India


MUMBAI: About 17 years after it acquired NatSteel Singapore, Tata Steel has sold the business for Rs 1,275 crore ($172 million). However, it has retained NatSteel’s wires unit in Thailand. Singaporean alloy trader TopTip Holding, which has a turnover of over $1 billion, has acquired NatSteel’s two Singapore facilities and one Malaysia unit.
The divested business, which had posted a revenue of Rs 2,852 crore in FY21, had a negative net worth as on March 31, 2021. Negative net worth means an excess of liabilities over assets. Tata Steel said the wires business in Thailand (Siam Industrial Wires) was separated from NatSteel Singapore and was consolidated with T S Global Holdings, an indirect 100% arm of the Indian company.
In the past, Tata Steel had attempted to sell NatSteel Singapore but the move had failed. In 2019, the Indian company had inked an agreement with China’s Hebei Iron and Steel Group to sell NatSteel Singapore along with its other operations in Vietnam and Thailand (Millennium Steel). But the deal had collapsed as it failed to pass muster with the Hebei government. Tata Steel subsequently sold NatSteel Vietnam to Thai Hing Trading, a local player in that country.
Following the latest development, Tata Steel is left with the larger Millennium Steel operations in Southeast Asia. NatSteel Singapore was Tata Steel’s first major overseas acquisition in 2004 that put the Indian company in a beachhead position in the global alloy market. Subsequently it bought Millennium Steel and the UK-based Corus.





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