Internationalization handles more than US$ 7 bi in acquisitions
Valor Econômico - 12/27/2007
The acquisition of the Argentine steel industry AcerBrag by the Votorantim group, announced yesterday, closed 2007, except in case of some last-minute surprise, as the most intense year of Brazilian internationalization in the sector. Altogether, the purchases of assets abroad will exceed US$ 7 billion. This movement is lead by the Gerdau group, which, alone, has purchased a dozen assets in Latin America, in the United States and India, with an outlay of US$ 6.46 billion. In this value the debt of US$ 215 million inherited in the purchase of Macsteel (a special steel division of Quanex) is not included. The Votorantim group, which has started its internationalization process in 2001, initially with cement and then zinc, increased its appetite with the disbursement of half a billion US dollars in the steel industry this year. In the beginning of the year, it purchased the Colombian Acerías Paz del Rio by US$ 491 million, and now, 27% of the AcerBrag, for an amount which was not disclosed by the company. Based on a reevaluation of the Argentine steel industry ordered by the owners, the value may have been between US$ 50 million and US$ 60 million, according to bank analysts of the sector. For Germano Mendes de Paula, a professor and doctor at the Federal University of Uberlândia and specialist in steel works, the movement of internationalization of companies of the sector is not exclusivity. "It is a representation of what takes place with companies of several sectors that have defined their way abroad as part of their growth strategy". He points out that this has occurred mainly with companies related to commodities, mining, steel works and others related to the basic industry (beginning of the productive chain). According to the specialist, the focus of the Brazilian movement is concentrated on mature sectors, in which expertise in the management capacity prevails over technological expertise, in addition to appetite and cash in hand. And all of them are profitable and have little or virtually no debts.