Tata Steel rejigs senior team to integrate Corus

The Tata Steel group - comprising Tata Steel and Corus Group, the European steel maker it acquired in January – on Wednesday took decisive steps towards integration by setting up a new organisation structure that will become effective January 1, 2008.

The new organisation structure includes an umbrella management team or "group centre" that consists of senior Corus Group and Tata Steel executives and to be co-chaired by Tata Steel's managing director B Muthuraman and Corus CEO Philippe Varin.

The group centre is being set up to ensure a common approach across the key functions - technology, integration, finance, strategy, corporate relations, communications and global minerals.

The directors overseeing various functions will report to both Muthuraman and Varin.

An integration committee chaired by Ratan Tata was announced at the time of the $12 billion acquisition of Corus Group to identify synergies between the two companies.

The group centre will be more focused and deal with specific functions. Therefore, some of the executives, such as those handling communications, technology and integration, will be posted in London.

The group has appointed Tridibesh Mukherjee as group director, technology and integration.

Mukherjee retired as deputy managing director (steel), Tata Steel, on October 31, 2007, and was appointed a non-executive director on the Tata Steel board on November 22.

Sources said Mukherjee would be moving to London. The key post of finance has gone to Tata Steel vice-president, finance, Koushik Chatterjee, who has been appointed group chief financial officer.

Jean-Sebatien Jacques, so far director, corporate development and strategy, with Corus, has become group director, strategy. Manzer Hussain is group director, communications, from London while Arun D Baijal takes charge as group director global minerals.

Both Tata Steel and Corus will have executive committees chaired by Muthuraman and Varin, respectively.

The reorganisation is designed to help realise the group's ambition of becoming "one of the leading players in the global steel industry,"according to a statement. Tata Steel Chairman Ratan Tata will continue to chair the integration committee.

The other members of this committee are Corus & Tata Steel Deputy Chairman Jim Leng, Muthuraman, Varin, Mukherjee, Rauke Henstra, who sits on the Corus board; Chatterjee, Jacques and Hemant Nerurkar.

With the acquisition of Corus, the Tata Steel group has a crude steel capacity of 25.6 million tonnes, making it the world's sixth largest steelmaker.

The Tata-Corus saga