Thyssenkrupp chairman Miguel López stated that the company would not sell its steel division to the Indian conglomerate Jindal Steel under any circumstances. “I will not dump the steel” López told Spiegel. This firm stance, he added, applied “to everyone who is interested”.
Despite this declaration, discussions with Jindal are reportedly continuing, and Thyssenkrupp remains committed to potentially relinquishing a majority stake in Thyssenkrupp Steel. However, López emphasized that the overall valuation has improved considerably, asserting, “I see an excellent future for our steel business”. He attributes this optimism to several positive factors: a newly agreed-upon restructuring labor agreement with employees, the planned sale of the Krupp Mannesmann blast furnaces to Salzgitter, and new EU steel tariffs.
While high-level talks with Jindal have been ongoing for months, sources suggest the discussions recently stalled. López categorically ruled out merging with the German competitor Salzgitter as an alternative fallback option if talks with Jindal fail.
According to López, Thyssenkrupp’s vision is to produce a reduced but highly modern, efficient, climate-friendly, and profitable quantity of steel. He believes this goal is now achievable and states that this new focus will make the company stronger than smaller German industry competitors, warning that incurring additional capacity burdens would be a mistake.
The CEO also took the opportunity to criticize his predecessors without naming them directly. “When I started, I found much broken porcelain” he said. He added that the company had “destroyed value to a truly terrible degree” before 2023.
López called for greater political support from the European Union, arguing for “Made in Europe” to build a resilient continent. He acknowledged that steel remains vital and can be produced sustainably. However, he strongly criticized the EU Commission’s planned “Buy European” rules, which mandate a minimum percentage of locally sourced material when states fund construction or promote electric vehicles. López deemed these rules “unprofessionally concocted” arguing that while the Commission can require green steel, it should not specify that it must be European, as this is illogical. He warned that current policies risk creating a “massive dependence” on steel imported from the Far East.
Finally, López rejected the German federal government’s planned subsidy of €1,000 per citizen, intended to offset high energy costs linked to the Iranian conflict. Calling the measure unhelpful, he stated, “We will discuss this internally, but we do not usually participate in ill-conceived measures”.