Lakshmi Mittal, founder and chairman of Mittal Steel, appeared close on 25 June 2006 to securing a merger agreement with European steelmaker Arcelor, following an Arcelor board meeting in Luxembourg. The deal, if confirmed, would cap a five-month campaign marked by sharp opposition from Arcelor leadership.
Mittal, 55, built his empire from humble beginnings in Rajasthan, India, where he started out in his father's small steel business in the early 1970s. The family relocated to Indonesia in 1976, where he founded Ispat Indo. A turnaround of a struggling state-owned steel operation in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s became one of his early landmark achievements.
In 2004, he combined Ispat International, LNM Holdings, and the US-based International Steel Group to create Mittal Steel, now the world's largest steel producer. The group employs more than 135,000 people across facilities on multiple continents.
A resident of Britain who retains Indian citizenship, Mittal topped the Sunday Times Rich List in April 2006 with an estimated fortune of 14.88 billion pounds. Forbes ranked him the world's fifth wealthiest individual, putting his net worth at 23.5 billion dollars.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in June 2006, in its own words.