US facility · Steel processing
Nippon Steel's trading arm and Pacesetter form Houston steel service center venture
- Company
- Nippon Steel & Sumikin Bussan (now Nippon Steel Trading) (Tokyo)
- Project
- NSPS Metals (joint venture with Pacesetter Steel), Houston, Texas
- Value
- $18.6M joint venture capital (Japanese side $13.0M, 70%), plus about $29M of equipment
- Status
- Joint venture formed in November 2018 to build a new service center in Houston.
- Date
- 2018-11-29
The US unit of Nippon Steel & Sumikin Bussan and Pacesetter Steel Service of Georgia formed NSPS Metals, owned 70/30, to build a flat-rolled steel service center in Houston. It took over and expanded Pacesetter's Houston plant. Capital was $18.6 million, and equipment was put at about $29 million.
Why it matters
More US buyers were switching from imported to US-made steel amid trade disputes, and the plant aimed at demand in the southern US and northern Mexico.
The plant
The new center was planned with one slitter, two levelers and a mini leveler, cutting and flattening steel sheet and coil for customers. It was to start at 100,000 tons a year, with its chief executive sent from the Japanese parent. The Japanese side put in $13.0 million and Pacesetter $5.6 million.
The partners
Pacesetter, founded in 1977 and based in Kennesaw, Georgia, is led by chief executive Aviva Leebow Wolmer and runs service centers in Marietta, Georgia, Sauk Village, Illinois, and Houston. The venture gave the Japanese group four service centers in the US and Mexico, alongside Kentucky Steel Center and a plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
