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Luxembourg rejects Mittal's bid

BRUSSELS: Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday that his Government — Arcelor SA's largest shareholder — had rejected Mittal Steel Company's hostile bid for the steel maker.

``We say no to the public offer launched by Mittal for Arcelor," Mr. Juncker said. He told the principality's Parliament that the Government — which holds a 5.6 per cent stake in the steel maker — was backing Arcelor's strategic plan and not motivated by profit. He said Luxembourg did not receive any advance warning of Mittal's bid and did not share its view that the combined firm could form a European industrial champion.

He is set to discuss the takeover bid at a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday. Arcelor is Luxembourg's largest employer with 6,000 workers in the principality.

European Union antitrust chief Neelie Kroes said she was not in principle opposed to a large steel merger such as Mittal Steel Company's bid for Arcelor SA. "I am not shocked by big, little or small mergers," she told the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee.

The E.U.'s executive commission had not yet received a formal request by either company to clear the merger and Ms. Kroes said she would look at it carefully in line with E.U. competition rules.

"We have not received all the facts and figures. ... We will do the job properly, not with emotion," she said.

Ms. Kroes will meet with Mittal, Chairman, and CEO Lakshmi Mittal on Wednesday to discuss the unsolicited $22.5 billion offer he made for Arcelor last week. — AP

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