Stelco Holdings Inc., Canada’s biggest steelmaker, is pursuing a bid for United States Steel Corp., adding to a growing list of suitors for the iconic American company, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Stelco is seeking to purchase the entire company as it looks to increase its portfolio of steelmaking assets and boost its share of the market for supplying metal to the automotive sector, the people said. Stelco is in talks with a potential partner on its bid, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. 

No final decision has been made and Stelco could opt against making a bid, the people said. 

Stelco’s interest comes amid Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel’s review of strategic alternatives, which has coincided with a rebuffed offer from rival Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. The battle for the company could spell the end of what was once the world’s biggest company. 

U.S. Steel fell 0.6 per cent to close US$31.23 in New York trading Thursday, giving the company a market value of about US$7 billion. Stelco fell about 1 per cent to US$27.68, giving it a market value of about US$1.5 billion. 

 

Representatives for Stelco and U.S. Steel declined to comment. 

Stelco is the successor to U.S. Steel’s assets in Canada, which Chief Executive Officer Alan Kestenbaum acquired out of bankruptcy in 2017. 

That came after U.S. Steel, amid shrinking profits, plucked some of Stelco’s best contracts and abandoned what was left of the company in 2015. 

Cleveland-Cliffs in August announced it made a US$7.25 billion cash-and-stock bid for the company, setting off shock across the American steel industry that was emerging from its most historically profitable era. The United Steelworkers, who have the right to bid for U.S. Steel, have said they’ll give that right exclusively to Cleveland-Cliffs.