Mitsui wants bids for Indias Sesa by Feb 19

Mitsui & Co, Japan’s second-biggest trading company, has set a deadline of next Monday for bids for its 51 percent stake in Indian iron ore exporter Sesa Goa Ltd., the Business Standard reported on Monday.

Sesa Goa, India’s largest private-sector iron ore exporter, said last month that Mitsui wanted to sell its stake in the company. At Friday’s close, Sesa Goa had a market capitalisation of $1.64 billion.

Mitsui’s advisor, Morgan Stanley, may take two weeks to select a winner, the newspaper said in an unsourced report.

Companies including Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel firm, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Brazil’s CVRD and local firms such as Sterilte Industries Ltd. and iron ore exporter MSPL are in fray for Mitsui’s stake, the paper said.

It said India’s diversified Aditya Birla Group had expressed interest in buying Mitsui’s stake in Sesa Goa.

“We are looking at Sesa Goa, which fits our strategy well,” the paper quoted group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla as saying.

On Sunday, the Birla Group-controlled Hindalco Industries Ltd said it had agreed to buy Canada’s Novelis Inc. for at a total cost including debt of $5.9 billion.

Under Indian regulations, the buyer of the stake would have to make an open offer for another 20 percent of Sesa Goa. Based on Friday’s closing share price, a 71 percent stake would be valued at $1.16 billion.

Sesa Goa owns iron ore mines in Goa, Karnataka and Orissa and counts China, Japan, Europe and Pakistan as its major export markets.

It operates a 280,000 tonne-a-year metallurgical coke plant and a 220,000 tonne-a-year pig iron plant.

Source: Reuters