Nippon Steel Corp. shares slumped on Friday on a report that the company is considering investing as much as $7 billion to upgrade United States Steel Corp. facilities if it wins approval for its proposed $14.1 billion takeover.
The potential commitment, reported by the news website Semafor, is significantly higher than a $2.7 billion pledge the Japanese company had previously made to rebuild aging assets of the US steelmaker.
Shares in US Steel gained more than 7 per cent in after-hours trading in New York Thursday. Nippon Steel slid as much as 3.98% in Friday trading in Tokyo. The move incorporates the impact of trading ex-dividend.
The two companies are in active talks to salvage a transaction originally announced in late 2023, Semafor wrote, without identifying its sources.
A Nippon Steel spokeswoman and a US Steel spokesman both declined to comment on the report.
Nippon Steel executives including Vice President Takahiro Mori are currently in Washington to meet with White House officials, hoping to secure approval for the deal. President Donald Trump said in February that he was opposed to a takeover, but would be in favor of the Japanese company taking a minority stake in the US giant.
--With assistance from Joe Deaux and Tsuyoshi Inajima.
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