ArcelorMittal has signed an agreement to acquire Bayou Steel, a producer of structural steel products for $475 million. Bayou Steel operates facilities in LaPlace, La., and Harriman, Tenn., producing billets, equal leg angles, unequal leg angles, flats, channels, standard beams and wide flange beams at its Louisiana facility and merchant-bar shapes at its Tennessee rolling mill. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

Through its Mississippi River recycling division, Bayou Steel operates an automobile shredder at the LaPlace plant as well as full-service scrap yards at LaPlace and its facility in Harvey, La. Bayou Steel, with 2007 revenues of approximately $331 million, employs 630 people.