A recent spat with François Hollande has revealed just how much clout is carried by Britain’s wealthiest individual. After Arnaud Montebourg, French Minister for Industrial Recovery, threatened nationalising ArcelorMittal’s French steel furnaces, its owner Lakshmi Mittal went straight to the Elysée Palace to call a meeting with Hollande. The entrepreneur and politician battled out a deal that, by Monday afternoon, revealed Mittal as the winner: his steel plants will not be nationalised. However, this is not the first time Mittal has thrown his industrial might against politics. Here are five other things you may not have known about Lakshmi Mittal:
- The Indian born magnate has clashed once before with a French president. During Jacque Chirac’s tenure, Mittal went through with a hostile takeover of the French company, Arcelor, against the President’s wishes. Allegations of xenophobia caused Chirac to later comment: “In principle, we have absolutely nothing against a non-European taking over a European company.”
- Hostility with French politicians is balanced with warm relations to the British. A major Labour Party donor, Mittal was accused in 2002 of buying political power. When a Romanian state steel company was being auctioned off, Tony Blair wrote a letter to the Romanian Government in favour of Mittal’s LNM. The letter, when revealed, caused uproar, especially since LNM was not registered in Britain, but in the Dutch Antilles, exempting it from hefty tax.
- Although he only moved to Britain in the 1990s, Mittal is now our wealthiest citizen. His personal $20.7 billion is larger than the GDP of Equatorial Guinea.
- The ArcelorMittal Orbit is named after him. The red tower, designed by Anish Kapoor and dubbed the Hubble Bubble by Boris Johnson, was built with his own steel.
- After long negotiations, Mittal was the first person granted a private party in the Palace of Versailles. The occasion: the engagement of his daughter, Vanisha, who then moved in next door at 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Garden.
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