Steel Dynamics Makes Move For Australian Company’s U.S. Assets
The leaders of Steel Dynamics Inc. last month partnered with an Australian industrial holding company to offer to buy BlueScope Steel Ltd. for about $8.8 billion. If BlueScope’s board accepts the bid, Steel Dynamics would take over the company’s U.S. business, which range from hot rolled coil and coated products to scrap metal recycling and building products.
The directors of BlueScope on Jan. 5 announced that they had received an all-cash bid from SGH Limited and Steel Dynamics on Dec. 12. The offer isn’t binding and comes with some conditions, BlueScope’s leaders said, adding that Steel Dynamics Chairman and CEO Mark Millett and his team have been knocking on their door for a while: In late 2024, a Steel Dynamics-led group said it wanted to buy the company and have Steel Dynamics take on its U.S. operations. About a year ago, Steel Dynamics alone offered to buy all of BlueScope and then divest its non-U.S. operations.
BlueScope’s board rebuffed all of those advances, saying they undervalued the company. The latest offer from SGH and Steel Dynamics is higher than the first consortium’s last offer but below what Steel Dynamics on its own offered early last year.
“The board of BlueScope is committed to optimising value for its shareholders across all of its businesses, and continues to regularly assess all options to accelerate realisation of this value,” the company said in a statement.
Steel Dynamics and SGH confirmed their joint bid late on Jan. 5, saying that BlueScope's U.S. units “are not strategically compatible” with those in Australia and elsewhere “and would benefit as stand-alone businesses under new ownership.” The companies also said they committed to work exclusively with each other on the BlueScope project for a year.
The U.S. operations of BlueScope employ about 4,000 people. In addition to using the BlueScope brand, they also go to market as Butler Manufacturing, Varco Pruden, Steelscape and ASC Profiles. Under their umbrella is a 50/50 joint venture with Nippon Steel Corp. that makes coated products at six plants in California, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
Steel Dynamics’ early-2025 bid assigned about 70% of BlueScope’s value to its U.S. division. If that share is roughly the same in the new SGH-Steel Dynamics joint bid, that implies a valuation of about $6.4 billion for the assets Steel Dynamics is aiming to take over.
Shares of Steel Dynamics (Ticker: STLD) were down about 2.6% to $171 and change in midday trading Jan. 5. They are, however, still up nearly 30% over the past six months—during which Millett and his team bought the 55% of metal solutions company New Process Steel they did not already own. The company’s market capitalization is now about $25 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s and writes about public companies, markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications, focusing on IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World and Healthcare Innovation. He also curates the twice-monthly Market Moves Strategy newsletter that showcases Endeavor stories on strategy, leadership and investment and contributes to other Market Moves newsletters.
With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati in 1997, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in early 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic more than fivefold before joining Endeavor in September 2021.