Naveen Jindal’s €4bn play for German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp
Jindal looks west
Naveen Jindal has made a nonbinding offer for the German industrial company Thyssenkrupp’s struggling steel unit. The financial details of the bid have not been made public, but Jindal Steel International has committed to invest about €2bn to transform Thyssenkrupp into Europe’s biggest producer of low-emission steel.
The company says it plans to use the hydrogen-powered “direct reduced iron” plant that it is building in Oman to provide supply security for Thyssenkrupp’s steel mills, and accelerate the shift to low carbon solutions. The German conglomerate, which has spent many years trying to be light and nimble, is “carefully” assessing the offer and weighing its long-term viability as well as its effect on the 25,000 or so jobs in its steel division. The shares of Thyssenkrupp AG rose nearly 8 per cent on the news.
Jindal’s bid for Thyssenkrupp is significant since the EU’s planned imposition of carbon tax on imports kicks in from January 2026. Thyssenkrupp’s steel division, which has a storied history going back to 1891, has in recent years battled low demand, high energy costs and a flood of cheap imports from Asia. These struggles forced the company to write down the value of the unit by €1bn last year, following another impairment of €2.1bn in 2023. In 2019, Tata Steel had made an offer to create a 50:50 joint venture with Thyssenkrupp, but the deal was struck down by regulators because of antitrust concerns.
Crucially, Naveen Jindal’s surprise offer — which could be as high as €4bn according to some Indian brokerages — was made through his privately held company, Jindal Steel International and not the listed entity Jindal Steel. In the past couple of years, the tycoon has been pursuing a strategy of building an international steel empire of sorts through his private investments, and this is his biggest play yet. In 2024, Jindal Steel International acquired a 100 per cent stake in the Czech Republic’s Vitkovice Steel. Earlier this year, it tried but failed to buy Italian steelmaker Acciaierie d’Italia. Jindal also owns mines and factories in the Middle East and Africa.
Jindal’s global ambitions are laudable, but he shouldn’t neglect decarbonisation efforts in India. Jindal Steel is only in the first phase of commissioning a low-carbon facility at its manufacturing unit in Odisha. More sustained and significant investments in reducing the company’s carbon footprint domestically is the need of the hour, especially since the demand growth in India will be much higher than in the European market, where Jindal will also have tough competition from manufacturers in China and other Asian countries.