WCI Steel expects sale to be OK’d

Minority shareholders filed a motion to stop the sale earlier this month.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — WCI Steel Inc. expects the sale of the company to a Russian-based firm to be approved in early July, the company said Friday.

The timeline is contained in a press release issued by WCI and after Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb of the Court of Chancery of Delaware ruled in favor of the Warren-based company that allows it to go ahead with the sale to OAO Severstal.

“We expect to receive shortly” the approval of the sale by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment and to finalize the sale to Severstal “very early in July,” according to the release.

Minority shareholders filed the legal action to stop the sale earlier this month. They alleged that WCI’s board of directors turned down an offer to sell the company at a higher price, and that the board was swayed by a steelworkers union. The sale price is $139.8 million.

The management, employees and most shareholders of WCI are pleased with the ruling not to enjoin the closing of the WCI to Severstal in connection with the lawsuit by Optima International of Miami and “a small group of dissident shareholders,” the release said.

Ed Machingo, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 1375, has said Severstal plans to invest millions in WCI, including relining the only blast furnace in the Mahoning Valley in 2011 and improvements in the finishing department.

Severstal is an international metals and mining company and the largest steelmaker in Russia with listings on the Russian Trading System and London Stock Exchange.