March 04, 2007	Sunday	Safar 14, 1428

NEW DELHI, March 3: Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus will merge with Tata Steel next month once the Indian company's shareholders approve the $13.7 billion takeover, Tata said on Saturday.

The deal, India's biggest-ever foreign takeover, comes up for approval by Tata shareholders at a meeting next Wednesday.

Corus Group Plc will be delisted from stock exchanges in April after shareholders give the nod to the acquisition, chairman, Ratan Tata, told reporters in the eastern Indian city of Jamshedpur.

"Once shareholders approve the proposal, Corus will be delisted from stock exchanges and would function as a subsidiary of Tata Steel from April," the PTI quoted him as saying.

The takeover will make Tata Steel, the flagship of the Tata empire, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, vaulting from 56th place after it beat Brazilian rival CSN in a bidding contest for Corus in January.

"An integration committee will be set up to oversee the merger of Tata Steel and Corus," Tata said at a function marking founder Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata's 168th birth anniversary.

Tata said after a meeting with Corus chairman James Leng the committee would comprise representatives from both companies.

Leng is likely to be deputy chairman and serve as a director on the Tata Steel board, a company official who wished not to be named told AFP by telephone from Jamshedpur, where Tata's largest steel plant is located.

The combined entity will have annual output of around 25 million tonnes and more than 87,000 employees. Tata said in Jamshedpur there would be no job cuts after the merger.

"Making Corus cost-competitive will not mean job cuts," the 68-year-old group chairman said.

However, in an interview with British business daily the Financial Times in Mumbai published on Friday, Tata said he could give no such promises because his company had only researched Corus "on paper" and had yet to examine the Anglo-Dutch giant in detail.

"I wouldn't even attempt to do so because it would be wrong of me to give those (job) assurances," he was quoted as saying.

Britain's largest steel trade union has demanded a meeting with the Indian tycoon seeking assurances that he will be committed to expanding Corus.

Corus, spawned by the 1999 merger of Dutch firm Hoogovens and British Steel, employs 47,300 people globally, including 24,000 in Britain and 11,400 in the Netherlands.

It is Europe's second-largest steel maker and the world's ninth-largest, producing around 18 million tonnes per year.

Tata Steel employed about 39,650 people as of March 2005, according to the company's latest corporate sustainability report. It is the biggest private steel firm in India.

Tata Steel Managing Director B. Muthuraman, meanwhile, said the financial structure for the funding of Corus acquisition would be finalised within the next few weeks.

"We will announce our strategy for funding soon," he said amid criticism that Tata may have had overstretched itself in the Corus takeover battle.

The Indian firm, part of the wider Tata group which includes business interests range from tea to software to automobiles, has $3.8 billion in annual turnover while Corus has $18 billion.

The Indian tycoon also said Tata Steel was looking for an overseas acquisition to supply it with iron ore and coal.

"The company is looking for coal blocks in Australia in addition to the acquisition of a five per cent stake in a coal company there," Tata added.—AFP