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Delta Steel set for private sector cash infusion to boost production: Garawany Group subsidiary International SteelIndustry is looking to invest EGP 5.5 bn to upgrade and expand state-owned Delta Steel through a nine-year lease agreement, the company’s CEO Ahmed El Garawany told Enterprise. The expansion should push Delta Steel’s production capacity to 800k tons a year by October 2025 and 1.2 mn tons a year by January 2027 when all development work wraps up.
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Where will the money come from? The investment will be 75% self-financed, with the remaining 25% sourced from local and European banks.
The details: The Metallurgical Industries Holding subsidiary is set to channel 60% of its steel production output to Egypt, 20% to Gulf markets — led by Saudi Arabia — and the remaining 20% to Europe, El Garawany said. Domestic demand is set to grow, he added, pointing to the Ras El Hekma project and the recent return of the 2008 Building Law.
What happens when the lease is up? While International Steel Industry had initially proposed to jointly invest in developing Delta Steel alongside the Public Enterprise Ministry, the ministry did not respond to the proposal, El Garawany said. As such, the company will either recover its development costs or remove its development equipment from Delta Steel’s production lines once the lease is up. El Garawany noted that the company expects to generate returns on its investment in no more than four years.
An attempted stake purchase turns into a lease: Last year, Delta Steel saw a number of firms — including International Steel Industry, Al Gioshy Steel, and El Garhy Steel, among others — express interest inacquiringa stake in the state-owned steel firm. During that period, International Steel Industries commissioned a fair value study of Delta undertaken by Global Appraisal Tech that valued the company at no more than USD 85 mn — well below the Public Enterprise Ministry’s sticker price of USD 170 mn, El Garawany told us. In light of this price differential, International Steel Industry opted for a nine-year lease agreement instead of a stake purchase.
