Steel deal
A $13 billion takeover bid for BlueScope by Indiana-based Steel Dynamics and billionaire Ryan Stokes is the talk of the ASX and will be watched closely in Canberra.
Indiana is the kind of Midwestern flyover state many Australians would bypass when visiting the United States. But this sleepy corner of the American Rust Belt is enjoying its cultural moment right now.
Netflix’s biggest hit and most-watched series, Stranger Things, is set in Indiana and concluded in a blaze of glory last week. At the same time, the flagship state university’s football team is in the middle of a run for the ages and is favoured to win its first — and highly improbable — national championship.
Hawkins, Indiana is fictional (and Stranger Things was filmed in Georgia), but its notional location is not far from Fort Wayne, Indiana — a city that has suddenly become a point of interest for ASX investors.
It is home to USD25 billion ($37.1 billion) steel giant Steel Dynamics, and it is from there that the heretofore little-known American company has plotted a series of takeover attempts for Australian steelmaker BlueScope over the past year.
