Lakshmi Narayana Mittal
Chairman and CEO,
Arcelor Mittal
Lakshmi Narayana Mittal, the most powerful industrialist in manufacturing steel, is chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal (2006); which is world’s largest producer of steel. Mittal owns almost 44% stake in ArcelorMittal. He started working in steel plant of his father; in early seventies; right after his graduation. He put forth his efforts in the steel Industry for nearly 35years. This transformed him unbelievably from an inherited family owned steel business to the world’s number one steel maker of the world. Mittal has sky touching ambitions and had a high urge of developing international business. The saga of Mittal steel took a spurt after Mittal bought a run-down steel plant in Indonesia and turned it around and doubled the turnover; within a short span of time.Lakshmi Mittal parted with his family and inherited the international arm of the steel business in 1994, which is mainly vested in Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago. In 1994 he found Mittal steel; by merging Ispat international with LNM holdings. Most of his success lied in acquiring state owned run-down steel plants in various countries at a cheaper price and turning them around. Mittal made a series of acquisitions in countries like Indonesia, Trinidad, Tobago, Kazakhstan, Romania, Ukraine, USA and the major merger deal with Arcelor an European steel making giant. After the merger the Mittal steel is named as ArcelorMittal.
Today Arcelor Mittal group performs its operations around 14 countries, across 4 continents; with net worth of $31.1bn as of 2011. ArcelorMittal controls 10% of steel production in the world. Lakshmi Mittal played a key role in consolidation of global steel industry. He has also pioneered the development of integrated mini-mills and the use of “Directly reduced Iron” (DRI) as a scrap substitute for steelmaking. This was all possible by the world class business hang of Mittal, his adaptive and transformational leadership style, his seamless ability to tap business potential in different countries.
Arcelor Mittal takes part very actively in community social responsibility program; in which it takes variant measures to produce “Safe Sustainable Steel”. Mittal not only stand in the list of top billionaires (ranking third) in the world, but he is also well known for his philanthropy. ArcelorMittal Foundation provides support to different community projects around the world, in the countries where ArcelorMittal oprates.Mittal a London based Indian originated international business tycoon made into the headlines world wide and he marked the pride of India.
Career Outlook
Lakshmi Mittal started his career in early seventies; working in his fathers steel business, right after his graduation. Soon he realized that the business opportunities are more lucrative overseas as compared to India. So, he moved to Indonesia in the year 1976 and bought a run down steel plant the “Ispat Indo” and successfully turned it around. Here began the history of a world class businessman. Mittal started buying loss-making state-owned steel mills and applied different strategies to turn them around. His major success knocked his door, when he turned around a highly run-down (losing nearly$1mn a day) government found steel plant in Trinidad and Tobago within short span of a year; where highly experienced consultants of USA and Germany failed. As he found the acquisitions more profitable, he started a series of acquisitions. In 1992 he bought a Mexican third largest producer of steel, Sicartsa for $220mn and later he acquired two more companies in Mexico. In 1994 he parted with his family business and all the international business came into control of Lakshmi Mittal; named as Ispat International. Due to collapse of Soviet Union in 1989, Mittal recognized new opportunities for his company, because heavily industrialized Eastern block has many highly potential steel mills. In 1995 he took over state-owned blast furnace steel plant in former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, and renamed it as Ispat Karmet. It was a highly risky proposition for Mittal, because “Temirtau” (Iron Mountain) works was close to the vast ore deposits required for steel making, but the plant had no heat or hot water and workers were not paid for over six months. Mittal spent $1bn to buy and renovate the plant and doubled the production from 120,000tons to 250,000tons within a year. Today it became major part of his business empire.Mittal managed to buy Romania’s state-owned steel company, Sidex. Overall Mittal managed to acquire 20 companies in former communist nations Kazakhstan, Romania and Ukraine. The same year, he entered into Europe by acquiring a steel plant in Hamburg, Germany. With this, the capacity of the group reached to 11.2 million tonnes. In 1997, Ispat International, the company that controlled the Group’s steel making operations in Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and Germany went for listing in 1997 on the New York and Amsterdam stock exchanges. Mittal made into head lines of Britain in October 2004, when his company merged with the International Steel Group an Ohio based company, which holds five major steel mills of USA.With this business deal Mittal Steel became world’s biggest steel producer with a net worth of over $22 billion and made Mittal Britain’s wealthiest business Baron. In 2005 Mittal acquired a stake in China’s Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group for $314mn, with 37% ownership. This was a risky proposition, because China is the world’s largest exporter and importer of steel and if the steel prices fell, there might have been heavy loss in investment. Another major milestone of Mittal Steel was takeover of European steel giant Arcelor of Luxembourg, the second largest steel company in the world. Mittal emerged victorious in acquiring Arcelor; after six months of negotiations and overcoming much opposition; after fighting a bitter battle. Arcelor’s executives have even referred Mittal Steel as a ‘company of Indians’ and the take over bid as ‘monkey money’. However, Arcelor’s shareholders, voted in favor of Mittal and his company on the basis of its profitable track records. Finally, Arcelor was acquired for 26 billion Euros ($33bn), becoming world’s largest steel entity of 100million tonne. The merged entity would be called Arcelor Mittal with the Mittal family owning 43.6 percent of the combined group. Today Mittal's industrial empire has steel making facilities in 14 countries and stretches from Indonesia to Poland, via Mexico, US, South Africa and Trinidad, North America, Africa, Asia and many European countries. This sort of career graph with huge variations show; Mittal’s intensive, aggressive and risk taking managerial style, which set him apart from the predecessor industrial big wigs of the west. Although steel manufacturing remains the group’s mainstream business, they have diversified into shipping and have ventured into coal, power and oil enterprises in Kazakhstan.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born in Churu district of Rajasthan; on 15th June 1950; Sadulpur; a desert village of India. He belongs to Marwari Agarwal caste. His upbringing was very humble and he lived with his extended family of twenty people. He has two younger brothers Promod Mittal and Vinod Mittal.Lakshmi Mittal’s grand father worked for the Tarachand Ghanshyam Das firm, one of the leading Marwari industrial firms of pre-independence India. His family later moved to Calcutta, where his father became a partner of an upcoming steel company. Lakshmi Mittal graduated in Commerce, in the year 1969 from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata Lakshmi Narayan Mittal is married to Usha Mittal, who is the daughter of a well-known moneylender in India. Later they had two children, a son named Aditya Mittal and daughter named Vanisha Mittal. Aditya is married to Megha, who is the owner of a fashion brand Escade. Vanisha Mittal is married to Amit Bhatia a businessman and a philanthropist.
Lakshmi Mittal with his wife Usha Mittal
Aditya Mittal and his wife Megha
Vanisha Mittal and her spouse Amit Bhatia
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