Frankfurt am Main — On Wednesday, German heavy industry giant ThyssenKrupp and Indian group Tata agreed to merge their steel operations in Europe, sending governments and unions scrambling to ward off job cuts. Once the deal is finalised in 2018, the two groups aim for efficiency savings of between ¤400m and ¤600m ($480m and $720m) a year — and are likely to shed 4,000 jobs in production and administration. The combination would create Europe’s second-largest steelmaker after ArcelorMittal, expected to produce about 21-million tonnes of steel a year for sales of ¤15bn. The two sides plan a 50-50 joint venture, named "ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel", as a holding company in the Netherlands with joint management that will employ some 48,000 people across 34 sites. "We will not be putting any measures into effect in the joint venture that we would not have had to adopt on our own," ThyssenKrupp CEO Heinrich Hiesinger insisted in a statement. "The steel industry has faced massive challenges in...
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