Steel Mills

Cleveland-Cliffs sets Nov. 1 closing date for Stelco deal

Written by Laura Miller

October 30, 2024

Cleveland-Cliffs has received all the required approvals to finalize its $2.5-billion acquisition of Canadian steelmaker Stelco Holdings Inc.

The transaction is set to close this Friday, Nov. 1.

The two steelmakers said on Wednesday that they had received the final approvals needed to close the deal under the Investment Canada Act and Strategic Innovation Fund.

This means the deal, first announced in July, will have been completed in under four months’ time.

That’s much faster than the other big M&A story of 2024: Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9-billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, first announced in December 2023, which has faced opposition from the start. The two companies still hope to close that deal by the end of this year.

Recall that the Cliffs/Stelco deal has the support of the United Steelworkers (USW), while the Nippon/USS deal still does not.

On Friday, upon Cliffs closing the Stelco deal, 1,800 USW members will join the Cleveland-Cliffs team, which already includes over 15,000 workers represented by various unions across its US mills.

We’ll hear more about the plans for the combined company when Cliffs releases its third-quarter earnings report next week.

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. Since 2007, she has held various editorial and marketing positions with steel industry publications, associations, and mills. In 2021, after a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel trade journalism, joining SMU in 2022. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.

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