If we could embed sound, I'd be trashing up your Internet experience with a nice, loud bumpkin auctioneer clip. But that's only because I've never heard a warp-speed auctioneer with a Brit accent, which is what we might need to keep up with the bidding at Corus Group (NYSE:CGA).
The U.K. steelmaker remains the most popular belle at the steel industry's consolidation ball, receiving a new, 4.9-billion-pound ($9.58 billion) cash offer from Brazil's integrated steelmaker CompanhiaSiderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) -- I'm just going to call it CSN. That bid got the nod from Corus's board and chair only hours after a previous and now-revoked blessing was bestowed on a sweetened offer -- 4.7 billion pounds ($9.19 billion) -- from India's Tata Steel. (If you feel lost without an official program, you may want to pay a visit to the Corus Group website.)
The acquisition game has been pretty lucrative for Corus shareholders, as the stubs have more than doubled off the trailing year's low set late last December. And it would be tough to argue that this isn't the right move for Corus.
The deal with Brazil will -- in the best corporate-speak -- result in plenty of synergies, and allow the combined firm to boast an integrated structure that will take iron ore out of the ground in Brazil and get it to Corus's U.K. and Netherlands plants, which produce everything from feedstock to specialized plate and structural steel.
More interesting to this investor is the direction of the money flow in these takeovers. In combining to form the fifth-largest steel outfit on the planet, CSN and Corus are on better footing to compete with the India-born steel giant Mittal Steel (NYSE:MT).
In other words, the movers and shakers in "emerging" economies are riding to the rescue of commodity producers in the old world -- the ones who used to do the buying and who are now saddled with high costs, making them less and less able to compete.
Who was it that rode to the rescue of struggling American steelmaker Wheeling Pittsburgh (NASDAQ:WPSC)? Well duh, the same CSN that's buying Corus, right? Didn't they agree to acquire it and save it from the operational and financing troubles it was having? Sure, but looking further back, we remember that, in late 2004, the Russian Severstal, through its North America arm, agreed to inject some much-needed capital in the form of a joint venture for improving Wheeling's coke plant.
Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before we see emerging economy producers looking for more and bigger stakes in American industries. I'm wondering just when we'll start seeing offers for the likes of AK Steel (NYSE:AKS), and it wouldn't surprise me if someone even took a run at a Nucor (NYSE:NUE).
Maybe not now, while the industry is still relatively flush and profits are strong. But give us time to move into a squishy economy, or an out-and-out housing-bust recession, and I think anything's possible. Think it could never happen? People used to feel the same way about Daimler-Chrysler (NYSE:DCX).
Looking for a world of investment opportunity? Seth Jayson is a member of the team at Motley Fool Global Gains , which devotes all its time to one idea -- finding the best investment ideas in the world. A free trial is just a click away.
At the time of publication, Seth Jayson had no positions in any company mentioned here. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. Mittal Steel is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. Fool rules are here.
