Australia's BlueScope Steel mulls US$8.8 billion takeover bid

Australia's BlueScope Steel says it is evaluating a Aus$13.2 billion (US$8.8 billion) joint takeover bid by a US rival and a diversified local firm.

BlueScope Steel, which has more than 16,500 employees worldwide, said it was the fourth attempt by US-based Steel Dynamics to snap up its American steel-making operations.

In the latest bid, Steel Dynamics has teamed up with Australian industry, energy and media company SGH to buy and split up the steelmaker, the companies said.

Under the proposal, SGH would acquire all shares in Melbourne-based BlueScope.

SGH would then sell the North American operations to Steel Dynamics while retaining the rest of BlueScope's global steel-making business for itself.

BlueScope is "considering and evaluating the indicative proposal", the Australian firm said in a statement released after financial markets closed Monday.

The Australian steelmaker said it would weigh the takeover proposal against its own "fundamental value", including its forecasts for cost and productivity improvements, a boost in cashflow, and a rise in earnings.

Three previous takeover bids involving Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Steel Dynamics had "significantly undervalued BlueScope and its future prospects", BlueScope said.

SGH and Steel Dynamics said their bid represented a total equity value of Aus$13.2 billion.

It offered BlueScope shareholders "an immediate, certain opportunity to realise a material uplift in value", they said in a statement Tuesday.

BlueScope's businesses in North America and in the rest of the world were not "strategically compatible", the two firms argued.

Melbourne-based BlueScope, which operates in 15 countries, was created when resources giant BHP split off its steel assets in 2002.