The LNM Group, founded in 1976 by Chairman Lakshmi Mittal who is considered to be one of the wealthiest persons in the world, is among leading global manufacturers of all sorts of steel. It offered 315 million US dollars for the purchase of the ownership stock in the ironworks in the central Bosnian city of Zenica which used to be one of the largest companies in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia employing at the time up to 20,000 workers.
The LNM Group also pledged to immediately invest 80 million, of a total of 425 million which it intends to invest in Zenica, so as to revitalise the ironworks.
The current director of the BH Steel, Seid Kapetanovic, described the deal as the biggest investment in Bosnia since the end of the war.
The KIA agency retains 41 percent of shares in the BH Steel company, and the government of the Bosnian Muslim-Croat entity (federation) will hold the rest of the stock.
The LNM management also pledged to retain the current 2,850 workers. According to its plans, the annual production of some 200,000 tonnes of steel in the ironworks will be increased to over two million.
Present at Monday's ceremony was also Lakshmi Mittal.