International Steel Group Inc., the company formed in Cleveland to take over the mills of bankrupt steelmaker LTV Steel, now is buying a closed mini-mill from Acme Metals Inc. for $65 million. ISG chairman Wilbur Ross says the deal allows ISG to rehire about 250 workers who were laid off when Acme closed the mill last October.

"In the normal course we would not have expected to do another acquisition this quickly," Ross says. "But our ramp-up has gone much more quickly than we expected." Ross says ISG is two to three months ahead of schedule in restarting former LTV mills in Cleveland, East Chicago, Ind., and Hennepin, Ill. The Acme Steel plant is in Riverdale, Ill., and will create finished steel sheets out of raw steel that is being produced at other ISG mills.

"This is just more finishing capability, and it means that the final end product will sell at a higher price," says Ross, who is principal owner of the WL Ross & Co. investment house in New York. Since Acme originally spent more than $300 million to build the mill, ISG is getting the mill, "for about 20 cents on the dollar, and that's important to us because capital costs are a very big problem in the steel business."

"We are quite excited about the addition of the Acme compact strip process, or CSP, mini-mill at Riverdale to our range of production facilities," says Rodney Mott, president and chief executive of ISG. "This state-of-the-art thin-slab caster and hot strip mill fits perfectly with our iron production capabilities at Indiana Harbor," he says.

The acquisition enables the company to expand its annual hot-rolled band capacity to 8 million tons and support the ramp-up of its Hennepin cold-rolling and galvanizing facility, which the company is currently in the process of putting online. Mott believes the use of hot metal from its Indiana Harbor Works blast furnaces at the Riverdale basic oxygen furnace will help lower hot metal costs at Indiana Harbor (East Chicago). It will also allow ISG to broaden its product range to mid-carbon, high-carbon, alloy and HSLA (high strength, low alloy) steels.