Posted on 03/28/2025 6:44:48 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
U.S. Steel shares are jumping in premarket trading Friday on a report that Nippon Steel is offering to spend as much as $7 billion to upgrade the American company’s aging Rust Belt facilities in a bid to obtain the Trump administration's approval of their $14 billion merger. The Biden administration had blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel on national security grounds in January.
Semafor reported that Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are in talks with the Trump administration for the Japanese company to raise its $2.7 billion planned investment in the US firm's facilities.
U.S. Steel (X) shares are jumping around 6% in premarket trading Friday on a report that Nippon Steel is offering to spend as much as $7 billion to upgrade the American company’s aging Rust Belt facilities in a bid to obtain the Trump administration's approval of their $14 billion merger.
The Biden administration had blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel on national security grounds in January. The two companies have since taken legal action over the blocked deal.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Semafor reported that Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are in negotiations with the Trump administration and had offered to increase the $2.7 billion the Japanese firm had previously offered to update the Pittsburgh-based company’s factories. Under the new deal being discussed, Nippon Steel would stick with its $55 per share offer for U.S. Steel and “would make sizable capital investments as soon as possible," the report said.
U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump had initially been against the sale of U.S. Steel but said at a February press conference that he supported Nippon Steel investing in the U.S. company rather than buying it, according to The Wall Street Journal.
To me, there's no logical reason for disallowing the merger. If it goes through, American jobs will grow, not shrink. The Japanese aren't going to move mills from Osceola, Arkansas, and Gary, Indiana, to Niigita City.
[Full disclosure: I'm long X.]
The grounds for stopping it are “security reasons” which I understand.
Even if we stop it, we need to address why US Steel Bankrupted to begin with. Unions and hostile business environments. Without that, nothing will change.
“Security reasons”??
Nippon, a Japanese company, is prepared to pay $14.9 billion and then invest over $7 billion. What’s the risk? That they’ll float the mills to Yokohama? That they’ll use them to produce Mitsubishi Zeros?
As to US Steel being bankrupt, it’s actually quite profitable. It made almost $400 million last year. It operates under the same union terms as the two other US majors, Cliffs and Nucor. If it were on the verge of bankruptcy, Nippon or any other bidder would just wait it out and acquire it by buying its indebtedness for pennies on the dollar.
The last American steel companies to declare bankruptcies were Wheeling Pittsburgh in 1985, LTV in 1986, and Bethlehem in 2001.
upgrade = replace completely.... that which is obsolete and totally uncompetitive
I wonder what those security reasons are beyond the whining of Cliffs Steele? Who just so happens to own the fabled Steel mill in Middletown; Ohio. Said mill was at one time owned by Kawasaki. There was no concern then when Kawasaki was funding the broken pension funds.
The Japanese have a habit of overpaying for US assets. Then dumping them later at depressed prices. We should encourage that. They have to do something with their the dollars generated by their trade surplus.
I’d be more concerned about Japanese ownership of 7-11 and Speedway.
Or be concerned about all the imported steel slabs Cliffs uses in their rolling mills. Of course most of the protected companies cry. “Tariffs for thee but not for me”.
I remember the Yellow Peril too!
In the late ‘80s, the Japanese were flush with cash and were buying landmark American properties like Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center and people were flipping out! They later took beatings on them.
I respect Goncalves at Cliffs (despite his stock’s horrible performance of late,) but, yeah, he has a very selective presentation of facts when it comes to multinationalism .
Trump should encourage the success of that merger.
Nippon steel, having invested their capital better than most American steel companies, has a lot of good experience in best practices that they can bring to U.S. Steel.
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