NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal is hopeful that his $22.1 billion bid for the takeover of the Luxembourg-based Arcelor will be accepted and the merger between his company and Arcelor will soon become reality.
"I would put my faith in the shareholders," he told New Delhi Television [Get Quote] in an exclusive interview when asked which political friends would he tap to secure the bid or would he move the world trade organisation.
Mittal denied that he simply wrote his bid on a piece of paper and left it for the management of the Arcelor to take a decision. "I and my son, Aditya, had initial talks with Arcelor's decision-makers on January 13 last year. Then I called them personally, but the person who I was speaking with on the phone hung up on me. Thereafter I left my message in the message box," Mittal said.
He claimed that the merger between the two steel giants would help the steel industry in turning around and said that his company's performance was 20 per cent better than the results released by his rivals who were putting up road blocks to thwart the takeover.
He defended inducting his son Aditya into the management and said that the boy had earned his place in the company.
He hoped that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take up this issue with the French President Jacques Chirac during their interaction.
He regretted the some leaders who were against the merger were making racist comments against him.