The sale of AK Steel to Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs is now official.
The $3 billion deal was finalized earlier this morning, despite questions surrounding the plant’s future.
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said last week that he would shut down the newly-acquired plants in Butler and Zanesville, Ohio unless a loophole was closed in the steel tariffs put in place by President Donald Trump.
Goncalves will serve as the CEO of the combined companies.
“This is a new era for Cleveland-Cliffs as a producer of differentiated, high quality iron ore, metallics and steel in North America. The new Cliffs will begin from a unique position of strength in our industry, with a dynamic combination of assets including two efficient integrated blast furnace steel mills, two electric arc furnace plants, a new state-of-the-art HBI plant and several other highly technologically developed facilities. We will be catering to a desirable customer base and primarily doing business in the United States, the most resilient manufacturing economy in the world,” Goncalves said.
“I am honored to be leading a Company that is built on such a rich history, and now combines mining, pelletizing, direct-reduction, EAF steelmaking, BF/BOF steelmaking, highly technologically developed finishing mills and automated manufacturing of auto-parts,” Goncalves said. “I am also very pleased to welcome the AK Steel employees and the unions representing the workforce throughout the country to the Cleveland-Cliffs family. From now on, we are a single, united and very strong team.”
