Tata Steel Ltd.

Tata Steel has offloaded 51 per cent stake in group company Tata Refractories to Nippon Steel's associate Krosaki Harima Corporation (KHC) and inducted the Japanese firm as a strategic partner. The deal is valued at Rs 576.3 crore, going by the Tata Refractories's (TRL) valuation at Rs 1,130 crore. Tata Steel would continue to hold 26.46 per cent stake in the TRL -- the largest domestic refractories manufacturer. Bringing in KHC as strategic partner will bring technical expertise into the Tata Refractories and would give it access to new markets. Krosaki Harima Corp is a leading global refractories maker and its 42.9 per cent equity is owned by Nippon Steel. The company, listed on the stock exchanges at Tokyo and Fukuoka, had sales of 82,874 million Japanese yen as on March 31, 2010. 

On the other hand, Tata Refractories is the largest refractories manufacturer in India and meets the requirement of industries like steel, glass, cement, non-ferrous and petro-chemicals. Its refractories works at Belpahar, Orissa, is considered to be the largest among all single refractory producing units in the world. TRL has an annual production capacity of 3.4 lakh tonnes. The company also has a manufacturing unit in China.