Corus Group

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Corus Group plc, normally referred to simply as Corus, is one of the world's largest producers of steel and aluminium, headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was formed from the merger of Koninklijke Hoogovens N.V. with British Steel Plc on 6 October 1999. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange (where it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index), Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange.

Corus has been structured into four divisions. These are:

Strip Products Division,
Long Products Division,
Distribution and Building Systems Division,
Aluminium Division.

It has major integrated steel plants at Port Talbot in South Wales; Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire; Teesside, Cleveland (all in England) and IJmuiden, the Netherlands. It also has a steel plants situated at Rotherham and Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, England. Group turnover for the year to 31 December 2005 was £10.142 billion. Profits were £580 million before tax and £451 million after tax.

On 16 March 2006 Corus announced that it had signed a letter of intent to sell its aluminium rolled products and extrusions businesses to Aleris International Inc for £570m. Corus would retain its smelting operations and supply Aleris under a long-term agreement.

Corus is the sponsor of the Corus chess tournament in the Netherlands.

British Steel

British Steel company logo (1966-)

British Steel was a large British steel producer, consisting of the assets of former private companies which had been nationalised on July 28 1967 by the Labour Party government of Harold Wilson.

In 1971 British Steel sponsored Sir Chay Blyth in his record-making non-stop circumnavigation against the winds and currents, known as 'The Impossible Voyage'. In 1992, they sponsored the British Steel Challenge, the first of a series of 'wrong way' races for amateur crews.

The British Steel Act 1988 was passed by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher to privatise British Steel. This was achieved on 5 December 1988.

It merged with the Dutch steel producer Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group on 6 October 1999. [link] at the time forming the third largest producer of steel behind Posco of South Korea and Nippon Steel of Japan. British Steel, with job cuts of about 12,000 in the pipeline formed about two-thirds of the merged group.

Koninklijke Hoogovens

Koninklijke Hoogovens was a Dutch steel producer founded in 1918. It was located in IJmuiden. This plant is now part of the Anglo-Dutch Corus Group steel company.

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