20 February 2024, 17:30 CET
Earlier today the Italian Government announced that it has placed Acciaierie d'Italia SpA (‘ADI') into extraordinary administration subsequent to the request of Invitalia, thereby passing control of the company from its current shareholders, ArcelorMittal and Invitalia, to government appointed commissioners.
This ends ArcelorMittal's involvement in ADI, which started in 2018. Since that time, ArcelorMittal has been fully committed to the people and assets of ADI - then known as Ilva - investing over €2 billion. This very significant investment enabled ADI to complete an extensive €800 million environmental programme on time that ensured compliance with the Integrated Environmental Authorisation set out by the Italian government, as well as invest €1.2 billion in upgrading equipment at all sites. ADI also benefited from hundreds of millions of euros of credit through the provision of raw materials by ArcelorMittal.
ArcelorMittal had been keen to address the significant discrepancy in capital investment into ADI by the two shareholders. In recent discussions ArcelorMittal put forward pragmatic proposals to address this while continuing the public-private partnership with Invitalia that was established in April 2021. When we were not able to agree on acceptable terms, we also offered to sell our shareholding in ADI to Invitalia. The discussions, despite ArcelorMittal's best efforts, were not successful.
Had ADI been able after April 2021 to access traditional debt financing and been able to raise the working capital required to fund its ongoing needs, rather than ...