British Indian billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Group submits a bid for the French aluminium wheel manufacturer, AR Industries (ARI). This is not the first time Mr. Gupta’s group is attempting to acquire an aluminium firm. Earlier also, he had brought one of Europe’s biggest smelters Aluminium Dunkerque from Rio Tinto at a cost of $500 million.
Gupta lives with a dream to create a €2 billion business in northern France to produce components for the automotive industry, reported by Financial Times.
{alcircleadd}According to the report, Sanjeev Gupta’s global industrial group GFG Alliance, led by Liberty Group, has submitted the bid to the court administrators for AR Industries at Chateauroux in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France.
“ARI fits perfectly into our plans for the creation of an integrated value-added business that makes both upstream and downstream operations competitive, sustainable and above all, protects skilled jobs,” said Gupta, according to the Press Trust of India. “France is a hugely important location for us and these investments will enable us to take our visionary and robust GreenSteel and GreenAluminium sustainable production strategy into one of the world’s most important industrial economies.”
He further said that he can envision the global and European car market to swell beyond the 50 per cent than what it was in the last decade; adding, acquiring ARI is “exciting, strategically important and very logical step” for the fast-growing business.
Gupta wishes to procure the aluminium wheel manufacturer and smelter because he believes in the fact that down the line vehicles will be made of aluminium, and will be lighter and fuel efficient.
According to him, although ARI represents a significant challenge, it would not be very difficult for GFG and Liberty, being competent in this field, to overcome the challenge with skills, commitments, and customers support.
ARI produces wheels for Renault/Nissan and PSA, and that would work along with Gupta-owned Liberty’s wheel factory at Scotland. The group is optimistic about capturing at least one quarter of the domestic market in the United Kingdom with its Scottish plant.
Now, let’s look forward to the result of the bid next month.
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