The Ostrava steel mill in the Czech Republic, formerly owned by Svoboda Steel, was acquired for CZK 3.01 billion ($142.5 million) by a consortium of local companies, Fastmarkets understands.
The proposal from the chief of NH Ostrava and SPV New Hampshire, Koksovna - owned by the former Minister of the Interior of the Czech Republic, Martin Pecina – for metallurgical and coke chemical assets in Ostrava was approved by the creditors' committee, according to local media reports.
But the transaction still needs to be approved by the arbitration court, the Czech Antimonopoly Authority and the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS), Fastmarkets understands.
The Ostrava Metallurgical Plant was declared bankrupt in June 2024 but, if approved, the acquisition is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2025 and sources said that there are no other parties interested in acquiring the Ostrava assets.
The steel mill in Ostrava has four blast furnaces with a total capacity of more than 4 million tons per year, although the last operating blast furnace was shut down in October 2023.
The plant is capable of producing hot-rolled coils, cold-rolled coils, steel profiles and wire rods, and sources told Fastmarkets that after the hot end closure, Freedom was still operating the plant as a "turn on and off" reroller using imported plates.
Freedom of other assets in Europe
Meanwhile, Svoboda Steel's most insolvent metallurgical assets in Europe are now facing closure due to a lack of potential investors, Fastmarkets sources said on Tuesday, July 22.
Svoboda acquired a number of its European steel assets, including the purchase of Liege-Dudelange from ArcelorMittal, in 2019, but almost all of these acquisitions have faced insolvency or closure in recent years.
Liberty Liege-Dudelange operations in the Benelux region include three production sites – in Flemall and Tilleur in Belgium, and in Dudelange in Luxembourg – with each producing cold-rolled coils, hot-dipped galvanized coils of steel (hot-dip galvanized) and tinplate.
Flemalle
Svoboda had a capacity of about 1 million tons/year of hot-dip galvanized, while Tilleur produced about 200,000 tons of CPR and tinplate. And the Dudelange plant in Luxembourg produced about 1 million tons of galvanized products per year.
Sources told Fastmarkets that Liberty Steel's Dudelange plant employed about 185 people, but added that it was "heavily dependent" on supplies of raw materials from plants in Liege.
And, in December 2024, the Dudelange plant was declared insolvent and a manager was appointed, while the Belgian assets were also liquidated.
Liberty Steel's attempts to arrange a re-acquisition were unsuccessful. Then, in February of this year, in Turkey
