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Non-Resident Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who brought about the merger of Mittal Steel with Arcelor to form the world's largest steel producing company Arcelor Mittal, has been declared the Sunday Times Business Person of 2006.
In voting by readers of the newspaper, Mittal piped to the post Stuard Rose, who revived Marks and Spencer, and John McAdam, who resuscitated ICI.
The Sunday Times said Lakshmi Mittal embodied the rise of a new breed of Indian entrepreneur: confident and commanding on the world stage.
And he has done it all his way, including, at the end, taking the chief executive's job at the new company, rather than the back-seat position of president, it said.
In an interview published in the newspaper on Sunday, Mittal said, 'The takeover of Arcelor is the most important achievement in my life. It is a milestone. It is the biggest transaction in the history of the steel industry, and the biggest in terms of the size of the company created. I don't think we will find another company overtaking us for the next few years -- may be the next five to ten years.'
The merged group employs about 330,000 people in 60 countries and makes 130 million tonnes of steel a year, 10 per cent of world production. Japan's Nippon Steel and Korea's Posco, the next biggest players, each make only about 30m tonnes a year.
Mittal hoped that in a few years Arcelor Mittal could be making 150m or 200m tonnes. "We need to be of that size," he said.