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Essar Group, Denham Capital Announce Purchase-Sale Agreement for Trinity Coal
03/08/2010 - Essar Group, through its Essar Minerals subsidiary, and Denham Capital recently announced a definitive agreement by which Denham will sell its ownership of Trinity Coal to Essar for US $600 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of March.
Essar Group through its subsidiary Essar Minerals, Delaware, and Denham Capital recently announced a definitive agreement by which Denham will sell its ownership of Trinity Coal to Essar for US $600 million.
The deal, subject to relevant approvals, is expected to close by the end of March.
As one of the top 10 U.S. coal producers, Trinity owns and operates mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and has a proven resource base of approximately 200 million tons of coal—split equally between metallurgical coal and steam coal. It currently produces about 7 million tons of coal annually and plans to ramp up production to 10 million tons per year.
“Trinity Coal will be an excellent addition to our North American business, ensuring that we become an integrated player in the region,” said Prashant Ruia, Essar Group Chief Executive. “Access to Trinity’s vast coal reserves and the opportunity to work with a team of skilled personnel will take us closer to our vision of becoming one of the lowest-cost steel producers in the world. I look forward to welcoming the people of Trinity Coal to the Essar family.”
“Our investment tenure in Trinity illustrates Denham’s ability to create value from the assets in which we invest,” said Carl Tricoli, Managing Partner of Denham Capital. “Trinity and Essar are well-suited to work together to meet the production needs of Essar’s facilities.”
“Over the last five years, our partnership with Denham has strengthened our management team and enhanced operational quality to drive value across the organization,” said Ken Woodring, CEO of Trinity Coal. “In this new era of our firm, we are excited to become a leading provider of resources to Essar as it increases production to meet demand for its expanding customer base.”
The transaction is part of Essar’s strategy to continue to achieve backward integration and to secure raw material needs for its global steel and power operations. Essar’s steelmaking capacity of 14 million tons is spread across plants in Canada, India, and Indonesia. It also owns iron ore reserves of more than 1.4 billion tons in Minnesota.
Denham acquired Trinity in January 2005; during its ownership, Trinity more than doubled reserves as well as increased productive capacity from approximately 1.7 million tons per year to 9 million tons per year.
Trinity operates six mining complexes with a total of 10 surface mines, three underground mines, and six highwall miner units in the Central Appalachian coal basin. The firm is based in Scott Depot, W. Va., and employs approximately 650 employees. It sells both steam and metallurgical coal to electric utilities, steel manufacturers, coal brokers, and other buyers primarily in the eastern United States.
The Essar Group is a multinational conglomerate and a leading player in the sectors of steel, energy, power, communications, shipping ports and logistics, construction, and mining and minerals. With operations in more than 20 countries across five continents, the Group employs 60,000 people, with revenues of US $15 billion.
Denham Capital is a leading global private equity firm, with offices in Boston, Houston, Short Hills, New Jersey, and London. With approximately $4.3 billion of invested and committed capital, Denham makes direct investments in all segments of the energy and commodities value chain, including oil and gas, mining, timber, power, carbon assets, and energy-related infrastructure and services. The firm invests globally, with investments currently in the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe, Russia/CIS, Asia, and Australia, and across all parts of the capital structure and all stages of the corporate and asset lifecycle, from development projects to mature, operating businesses.
