Usinor, Erdemir and Salzgitter race for Sidex

The international consortium comprised of Usinor (France), Erdemir (Turkey) and Salzgitter (Germany) groups at the end of last week announced they would only bid for taking over the company management for two years, in order to "prepare it for a second privatisation."

"We'd rather not buy for the moment, because we know nothing about Sidex, financially. We are familiar with the economic and technical situation of the plant from the study we performed in 1999, but accounting records are poorly kept and not financially relevant," said Cristophe Cornier, Usinor manager for Southern Europe.