Tata Steel plans foreign listing
The Financial Express — March 5, 2007

Corus plc will become an unlisted company soon after Tata Steel takes it over by the first week of April through its 100 per cent subsidiary, Tata Steel UK. Also, Tata Steel is at present planning a listing on one of the overseas bourses. Also, an "integration committee" acting as a "shadow board", with members taken from both Corus plc and Tata Steel, is to run the two entities as a single one thereafter. Tata Steel chairman Ratan Tata said here on Saturday: "Tata Steel is planning a listing in an overseas market." He did not mention the specific bourse where the steel major plans to be listed.

"I think we should be the owners of the Corus stock sometime in April if (Corus) shareholders pass our deal at the EGM to be held on Wednesday (March 7)," said Tata. While Corus would continue to be managed largely by the present management, an "integration committee" to be chaired by Tata with managing director B Muthuraman and other Tata Steel and Corus plc officials as its members has been created to operate almost like "a shadow board" for the two companies which would be managed "as a virtual single company".

The Corus board would be recast with some Tata Steel officials, and simultaneously, some Corus directors would serve on the Tata Steel. According to Muthuraman, Tata's financing structure of the Corus buyout, which is to be in a 40:60 equity to debt ratio, would be in place "sometime in the next couple of weeks". "Sending slabs from India to UK is not the only synergy we are talking about; what we would like to ensure is that all other synergies like in manufacturing, sharing best practices, R&D, joint marketing, etc, are put in place," said Muthuraman, adding that a joint team of both the companies have worked out the potential synergies for the next two-three years, which is expected to lead to savings of around $350 million.