SMU Community Chat

Register for Weds Community Chat with BoA M&A expert Ira Kreft

Written by Michael Cowden

December 8, 2023

Register for Dec 13 Community Chat with BoA M&A guru Ira Kreft

Bank of America SVP Ira Kreft will be the featured speaker on SMU’s Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at 11 am ET. You can register here.

What we’ll talk about

We’ll discuss M&A in the steel and metals industries. Is there still room for consolidation in flat-rolled steel?

We’ll also talk about the trend of historically carbon steel service centers diversifying into stainless and specialty metals. They are adding great value-added capabilities, including downstream fabrication. How durable is that trend, and what does it mean for M&A at the service center level?

Finally, mills are focused on decarbonization.  Beyond record piles of cash, what financing is available to fund their path to net-zero?

We’ll take your questions too. So think of some good ones, and throw them in Q&A box on Dec. 13.

Why you should listen

Ira Kreft is a senior vice president at Bank of America Business Capital and national metal industries executive. His office is in Chicago and he works and collaborates with Bank of America’s bankers and investment bankers with respect to companies from Main Street to Wall Street across the metals spectrum from metal recyclers to mills to service centers to fabricated metal and metal intensive manufacturers.

He serves as a subject-matter expert in metals for BoA’s Global Commercial Banking division. He comes by the metal industries naturally because his father spent his career with U.S. Steel and he was indoctrinated into the industry at an early age.

Editor’s note: If you’d like to see recordings or slide decks from past Community Chat’s – including a very good one recently with Algoma Steel CEO Michael Garcia – you can find those here.

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is managing editor for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He has since 2014 specialized in flat-rolled steel but has previously reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube as well as aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago - where he was involved in launching AMM's daily hot-rolled coil index, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.

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