Lakshmi N.Mittal Elevates as ArcelorMittal's Executive Chairman; Aditya Mittal Takes Charge as New CEO

Lakshmi N.Mittal becomes ArcelorMittal’s Executive Chairman and paves the way the way for his son Aditya Mittal to step in as the new CEO. Aditya Mittal would now be president, chief financial officer (CFO) and chief executive officer (CEO) ArcelorMittal Europe. Lakshmi Mittal, who established the company in 1976 and is currently the chairman and CEO, would become executive chairman of the company.
Lakshmi N.Mittal will continue to lead the board of directors and work together with the CEO and management team; on the other hand, Aditya Mittal would operate the company on daily basis.

Commenting on the advancement, Lakshmi Mittal states, “Having achieved some key strategic targets, this seems like the right moment to transition to executive chairman and the board unanimously agree that Aditya Mittal is the natural and right choice to be the company’s chief executive.”

He further adds, “We have worked closely together since he joined the company in 1997, indeed in recent years we have effectively been managing the company together”.

Those who know Aditya Mittal say that he has been spearheading the company’s acquisitions for a while now; in 2006, he had initiated and led Mittal Steel’s offer for Arcelor, creating the world’s first 100 million tonne plus steel company.

In India, ArcelorMittal’s major entry into steelmaking with the acquisition of Essar Steel – jointly with Nippon Steel – under the insolvency law, in 2019, was largely led by him. It was Mittal, who led the due diligence and is now the chairman of Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India.

ArcelorMittal reported better than expected numbers in the fourth quarter numbers (the company follows a January to December fiscal) with EBITDA at $1.7billion, almost double 4Q'19 level.

A challenging market environment, however, saw steel shipments decline in 2020 by 18.2 percent and a net loss of $0.7 billion.
On rising steel prices, that has been in focus in India, Mittal said, responding to queries that, in India, demand levels had come back much stronger than 2020.

“So, the cost of raw materials is rising and that causes impact on steel pricing. It is a combination of how quickly demand is coming back, supply is ramping up, but our costs are increasing and in particular the impact of iron ore. And that is also true in the Indian context where we have seen even domestic prices of iron ore increase quite substantially,” said Mittal.