KIEV, Oct 24: With a bid of $4.8 billion, the world’s top steel maker Mittal Steel won a re-run auction of Ukraine’s Kryvorizhstal giant on Monday, in a sale the “orange revolution” government hopes will calm investor jitters and attract foreign investment.

Mittal was declared the winner of the 93.02 per cent stake in Ukraine’s largest steelworks after a bidding war with a consortium led by France’s Arcelor pushed the price up by more than $1 billion in an auction televised live on two national channels.

President Viktor Yushchenko, for whom the sale was a key test of his government’s avowed commitment to transparency and free market, hailed the result, saying that the sale price exceeded by 20 per cent all privatization proceeds in post-Soviet Ukraine.

“What happened today shows that Ukraine is capable of holding an honest privatization,” Yushchenko, who was present in the building where the auction took place though he did not attend the sale itself, said in televised comments.—AFP