LIBERTY Steel Group (“LIBERTY”) can confirm it has completed its acquisition of the Dunaújváros steelworks, Hungary’s leading steel producer, following EU regulatory approval earlier this month. The acquisition will strengthen LIBERTY’s strategic position in the high growth potential markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

Ajay Aggarwal, European President of LIBERTY Steel Group, said: “We are very pleased to have completed the acquisition of what will now be called LIBERTY Dunaújváros. Over the last nine months, working closely with the Dunaújváros team and the Ministry for Economic Development, we have helped rescue the plant from the brink of collapse to a position where it now has a clear path to a bright future.

“Central and Eastern Europe has an inherent advantage on the journey to green steel with project costs less than half that in Western Europe, with high regional growth. This is why LIBERTY has focused on the region for our green steel projects in Europe and we’re now looking forward to doing the same here in Hungary.

“We look forward to working with our new family in Dunaújváros, building on the metallurgical culture which has flourished here for generations and deliver a sustainable future for LIBERTY Dunaújváros, supporting the communities which depend on it and the wider Hungarian economy.”

Notes

• The acquisition is the next major step in LIBERTY’s rescue of the Dunaújváros steelworks which began in December 2022.
• LIBERTY will now implement a detailed plan over the next 100 days to improve the steelworks’ commercial performance as well as a comprehensive longer term plan to produce lower carbon emissions steel, in line with the Group’s ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030 (CN30). As a first major step in the decarbonisation journey, last month LIBERTY signed an agreement with China’s CISDI Engineering Co. to install a 1.5Mtpa capacity Electric Arc Furnace at Dunaújváros. The new EAF would cut the plant’s direct CO2 emissions by 80%.