Tata steel rallies over 2% on talks to sell long steel business in Europe

NEW DELHI: Tata Steel Ltd rose as much as 2.6 per cent in trade on Thursday, after media reports suggested that the steel major has initiated talks with the Klesch Group, to undertake "detailed due diligence and negotiations" for the possible sale of its long steel business and associated distribution activities in Europe.

At 09:20 a.m.; Tata Steel pared some of its morning gains but was still trading 1 per cent higher at Rs 460.30. It hit a low of Rs 460 and a high of Rs 468 in trade today.

Tata Steel had made an audacious $12.04-billion bid for the Corus Group trumping a bid by Brazil's CSN in a nine-round auction process in 2007, a year before the financial crisis hit businesses in Europe and North America, ET reported.

Since then the company has been struggling to wring profits out of the European steel maker and has been looking to sell parts of its European steel operations as well as lower interest costs, added the report.