Esmark is confident in fight for company

An Illinois-based company is ready to take over the steelmaker.
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) -- Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp. shareholders on Friday appear to have elected Esmark Inc.'s slate of candidates to the steelmaker's board, rejecting nominees backed by current management that favored a combination with a Brazilian steelmaker.
"Based on preliminary figures available, we expect the Esmark slate will be certified as the new board, following verification by our independent inspector of elections," Wheeling-Pitt Chairman and CEO James G. Bradley said in a statement.
Before the results were announced Friday afternoon, Esmark CEO James Bouchard said he was confident of victory, ready to move into headquarters within weeks and eager to begin rebuilding the twice-bankrupt company with the help of the United Steelworkers.
"There's a lot of healing that needs to be done inside the company" after the uncertainty of the past 18 months, Bouchard said. "It's time for us to sit down and work together."
Different futures
The competing plans, while similar, envision different futures for the company that employs some 3,100 people in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
With Brazil's Companhia Siderurgica Nacional SA, Wheeling-Pitt would look essentially as it always has, remaining a steel producer with its traditional structure and clients, but processing slabs bought from Brazil at market price.
The deal would build on several international partnerships that Wheeling-Pitt already has, while giving CSN greater involvement in the U.S. market.
Esmark would make Wheeling-Pitt a more diverse production and distribution company, tapping into a base of 2,000 customers in the Midwest and theoretically reducing its earnings volatility.
The high-cost blast furnace would be shut down, and production in the electric arc furnace ramped up. Esmark would shift production away from expensive raw materials and toward scrap, and it too would import slabs -- from suppliers in the Ukraine and Switzerland.
Bouchard also announced publicly that he and brother Craig, president of Chicago Heights, Ill.-based Esmark, have toured the Weirton operations now owned by Mittal Steel Co., met with the union and are prepared to buy.
"If Mittal elects to sell Weirton, Esmark stands ready to make a cash offer," James Bouchard said.
Suggestions
John Goodwin, who would become CEO of the combined Esmark-Wheeling Pitt, said Weirton workers have already suggested ideas including the restart of some equipment and the launch of a new paint line and cold mill.
"We were very pleasantly surprised" by its potential, said Goodwin, a former executive with Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. and the defunct National Steel Corp.
Mittal may have to sell one of its U.S. assets -- either Weirton or its much larger mill in Sparrows Point, Md. -- to settle antitrust issues over its merger with Arcelor. Though it has not made a final decision, Mittal has previously said its first choice would be Weirton.
Mark Glyptis, president of the 1,200-member Independent Steelworkers Union, has said workers welcome the chance for new ownership and a stable future. The company once employed some 13,000 people but has since gone through a bankruptcy and two sales.