Finance II

Professor. Nobuya Takezawa

Individual Research Paper

Tata’s Corus Valuation

By: S Murali Manikandan

Tata’s Corus Valuation

Introduction:

Tata Steel was established by an Indian, Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata in 1907. Though he died in 1904, before the project came to light, he sowed the seeds for a company that can stand the test of times. A century later, they took over Corus to become the 5th largest steel producer in the world. On January 31st 2007, Tata Steel took over Corus for USD 12.11 Billion. It took 9 rounds of bidding against a Brazilian competitor, CSN to seal the deal.

The deal between Tata and Corus was officially announced on April 2nd 2007 at a price of 608 pence per common share in cash. It was a 100% acquisition and a new entity was born, to be run by one of Tata’s subsidiary in London. When the acquisition process started off in 2005, the initial offer was 455 pence and finally ended with Tata paying 608 pence, which is 33.6% more than the initial offer. This raises many an eyebrows about the final price. What transpired between 2005 and 2007? Was 608 pence/share a fair price?

Steel Industry

Tata Steel has its own mines and manufacturing units for the production of all kinds of steel. Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight depending on the grade. Iron, like most metals, is found in the Earth's crust only in the form of an ore, i.e. combined with other elements such as oxygen or sulfur. Iron imputed with carbon forms steel. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are also used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten. Carbon and other elements act as a hardening agent, preventing dislocations in the iron atom crystal lattice from sliding past one another. By varying the amount of