Bredin Prat advises Marcegaglia as it buys Ascometal Fos-sur-Mer, a specialist in the production of bearing and engineering steels

Pursuant to a ruling issued on 31 May 2024, the Judicial Court of Strasbourg selected Marcegaglia, a leading European steel producer specialised in steel processing, as buyer of the Ascometal Fos-sur-Mer site.

All of the 323 employees of Ascometal Fos-sur-Mer are being transferred and will be integrated, along with the Ascometal Fos-sur-Mer site, into the Marcegaglia group.

This ruling follows the court-supervised insolvency proceedings which were opened at the end of March 2024 concerning the Ascometal group, a key player in the French steel industry, specialised in the manufacture of special steels notably for the Automotive/Forging, Bearings, Oil/Gas and Mechanical Engineering markets.

Marcegaglia’s acquisition of the assets and taking on of the employees of Ascometal Fos-sur-Mer, which involves an investment of more than €800 million and a project which will ultimately enable more sustainable and efficient production at the Fos-sur-Mer site, was able to take place notably thanks to the support and mobilisation of various French government departments.

This transaction forms part of the broader strategy of decarbonising the Marcegaglia group’s activities.

The Bredin Prat team advising Marcegaglia included:

• Restructuring: Nicolas Laurent (partner), Benoît Delort, Martin Aubert and Daniel Ifrah
• Corporate: Alexander Blackburn (partner), Cyril Courbon and Julia Heinrich
• Competition: Arthur Helfer (partner), Valérie Landes and Thomas Chevreteau
• Public law: Yann Aguila (partner), Guillaume Léonard, Wallis Hebert and Ilia Tushishvili
• Employment law: Laetitia Tombarello (partner) and Camille Wattrelos