Gulf United Steel Holding Company (Foulath), a leading global steel investment vehicle and the world's first fully integrated steel producer, announced Sunday the acquisition of the Saudi-based United Gulf Steel Mill Company Limited (UGS) by its subsidiary United Steel Company (SULB), a steel manufacturing joint venture between Foulath (51 percent) and Japan's Yamato Kogyo Co., Ltd, (49 percent), a leading global section producer for the production of beams and structural steel sections. Commenting on the announcement of UGS acquisition, Hisham Al-Razzuqi, Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait-based Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC), said: "The acquisition of UGS with an annual capacity of 450,000 tons of light & medium sections and beams by SULB emphasizes GIC's main mandate in developing the economy of the region through investments in profitable projects or acquiring companies that are facing difficulties and turn them around to profitable companies. For example in 2000, GIC acquired Gulf Industrial Investment Company (GIIC) in the Kingdom of Bahrain, pelletizing plants with an annual capacity of 12 million tons of pellets, which was underperforming, and with the knowledge and experience of GIC in industrial investments, succeeded in turning the company into one of the most profitable companies in the region. Similarly, SULB has acquired UGS, who were facing financial difficulties, to turn it around to profitability by integrating it with Foulath's fully integrated facility in the Kingdom of Bahrain." He further said: "UGS, being part of Foulath, will benefit from the integration by securing raw material (billets) from SULB on a continuous basis at a very competitive price, enabling it to penetrate the market, ensuring its sustained profitability." Moreover, he said "SULB and UGS currently are the only producers of a full range of light, medium and heavy, sections and beams in the region with a combined capacity of about 1.1 million tons a year which will replace about 25 percent of the total annual imports of 4 million tons." "GIC will continue to support private and government sectors to advance its mission and play a major role in supporting the growth and further development of the GCC economies," he added.
