(Bloomberg) -- US steel processor Esmark Inc. said it offered to buy United States Steel Corp. for $7.8 billion in cash, trumping an earlier bid from Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. It didn’t say how the company, not a household name, intends to fund its offer.
US Steel shares spiked on the news, rising as much as 43%. The company announced Sunday it had started a strategic review of alternatives after rejecting the offer from rival Cliffs, which was valued at about $32.53 based on Friday’s closing prices, or $7.25 billion.
Esmark Steel Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Esmark Inc., is a leading processor and distributor of value-added flat-rolled steel in the US and the third-largest domestic producer of tin plate steel, the company said in its statement. Esmark is run by James P. Bouchard, a former US Steel executive in Europe, who is an executive committee member of the American Steel Institute and the European Steel Association.
(Updates with background on Esmark.)
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