India's Tata Steel is set to become the world's fifth-biggest steel maker after winning a dramatic bid battle for Anglo-Dutch group Corus with a 6.2 billion pound ($12.2 billion) offer. Tata Steel said on Wednesday its bid of 608 pence a share in cash topped the best offer from Brazil's Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) after a quick-fire auction that drove the price for Corus almost a fifth higher. The deal, India's biggest-ever foreign takeover, is expected to fuel a new wave of consolidation in the fragmented steel sector after Mittal Steel bought Arcelor for $32 billion last year to create the world's biggest steel producer. "This creates an incentive for more consolidation in Asia (Japan, China) and in the United States," said Sylvain Brunet, head of steel and mining at Exane BNP Paribas, adding that CSN was a likely predator after missing out on Corus. Corus shares jumped 7 percent to near the bid price, and shares in other European steel stocks also rose, with Arcelor Mittal hitting a new high of 36.32 euros, Germany's ThyssenKrupp up 1.3 percent and Finland's Outokumpu up 3.2 percent by 1050 GMT, Reuters reported.
