Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty Steel buys Johnstown Wire in US for undisclosed sum

Indian-origin metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta-owned Liberty Steel Tuesday said it has acquired Johnstown Wire Technologies (JWT), North America's largest producer of value-added carbon and alloy wire.

The company, however, did not provide the financial details of the transaction.

The acquisition has helped the company expand its footprint in the US steel downstream products market, Liberty Steel said in a statement.

"Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty Steel, part of the global GFG Alliance, further expanded its footprint in the US steel downstream products market with the acquisition of Johnstown Wire Technologies (JWT) in Johnstown, Pennsylvania," it said.

London-headquartered GFG Alliance is a global group of energy, mining, metals, engineering and financial services businesses.

The acquisition gives Liberty Steel valuable capacity to manufacture a range of high-value carbon and alloy wire products for infrastructure, automotive, utility and consumer sectors, the statement said.

The manufacturing facility at Johnstown, will complement Liberty Steel's melting and rolling operations at Georgetown, South Carolina and Peoria, Illinois and, combined with its scrap processing plant in Tampa, Florida, will firmly embed the business along the full value chain in the US steel market.

The 638,000 square foot Johnstown site has been a high-profile steel manufacturing facility for over 100 years and is a top three US producer of the types of steel that will be needed to modernise ageing infrastructure - electro-galvanized, aluminized and spring wire.

"It's a great pleasure to welcome 250 highly-skilled new members to our family. Integration upstream and downstream with value-added product manufacturing is an absolute core to our US steel strategy. The addition of high-quality specialized facilities at Johnstown further strengthens our existing facilities at Georgetown and Peoria," Sanjeev Gupta, GFG Group executive chairman added.

"We are excited to be joining the GFG family of global businesses and see this as a tremendous opportunity to further our position as a leading manufacturer of steel wire in North America," Jack Miller, President and CEO of Johnstown Wire Technologies said.