Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. It started to operate in 1958 in Qingshan,

Wuhan Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It was administered by

State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) is a special commission of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It was founded in 2003 through the consolidation of various other indus ...

(SASAC), but in 2016 it was merged with fellow SASAC supervised steel maker

Baosteel Group China Baowu Steel Group Corp., Ltd., commonly known as Baowu, is a state-owned iron and steel company headquartered in the Baosteel Tower in Pudong, Shanghai, China. The company was formed by Baosteel Group absorbing its smaller state-owned p ...

. According to the

World Steel Association World Steel Association, abbreviated as worldsteel, is the international industry association for the iron and steel sector. The association is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world, with members in every major s ...

(Chinese companies data was provided by

China Iron and Steel Association China Iron and Steel Association (CISA, ) is a national, non-profit organization founded in 1999 on the basis of China Metallurgical Enterprise Management Association. CISA members consist of China’s steel enterprises, institutions, societies an ...

), the corporation was ranked the 11th in 2015 the world ranking by production volume. However, after a heavy net loss in 2015, a plan to cut the production capacity in Qingshan plant, Wuhan, in

Echeng Echeng District () is one of the three administrative districts into which the prefecture-level city of Ezhou, China's Hubei province, is divided. The district is quite small, and includes Ezhou's main urban area (i.e., in informal terms, Ezhou "c ...

plant,

Ezhou Ezhou ( zh, s= ) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Hubei Province, China. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 1,079,353, of which 695,697 lived in the core Echeng District. The Ezhou - Huanggang built-up (''or metro'') area w ...

as well as in

Xiangyang Xiangyang is the second-largest prefecture-level city by population in northwestern Hubei province, China. It was known as Xiangfan from 1950 to 2010. The Han River (Hanshui), Han River runs through Xiangyang's centre and divides the city n ...

plant for a total of 4.42 million metric tonnes, was announced on 7 July 2016.

History

The steel plant in Qingshan, was one of the of the First Five-year plan of China. In 1997, a subsidiary, Wuhan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. was incorporated to listed Qingshan steel plant in

Shanghai Stock Exchange The Shanghai Stock Exchange (, SSE) is a stock exchange based in the city of Shanghai, China. It is one of the three stock exchanges operating independently in mainland China, the others being the Beijing Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock ...

, while Wuhan Iron and Steel Group was transformed into a holding company, which acquired steel plants in

, Hubei Province, and in

Liuzhou Liuzhou (; , Standard Mandarin: , Liuzhou Yue dialect: International Phonetic Alphabet, iəu53 ʦəu44 is a prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The prefecture's population was 4 ...

, Guangxi Province (sold back to SASAC of Guangxi Province in 2015) and build a new plant in Fang-cheng-gang, Guangxi Province. In September 2012 Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation agreed to acquire the automotive components manufacturer Tailored Blanks from

ThyssenKrupp ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational conglomerate. It resulted from the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and has its operational headquarters in Duisburg and E ...

for an undisclosed price. At the time of the agreement Tailored Blanks had annual sales of around 700 million euros and a global market share of about 40 percent in automotive laser-welded blanks. Its executive chairman,

Deng Qilin Deng Qilin (; born November 1951) is a Chinese industrial engineer, manufacturing executive, and politician. He served as the chief executive of Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) from 2013 to 2015. Deng was investigated for corruption by ...

, was investigated for corruption in 2015. New chairman, Ma Guoqiang, who replaced Deng Qilin in June 2015, had announced a plan to cut 50,000 staff from their current 80,000. On 21–22 September 2016 the merger plan between Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation and

was announced. The listed subsidiary, Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, would be taken over by the listed counterpart of Baosteel in an all-share deal, while the rights of unlisted Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation would be transferred to Baosteel Group for free, as both were supervised by the same entity, the

. The merger of the two parent company was completed in November 2016 and the merger of the two listed subsidiaries was completed in February 2017. Ma Guoqiang, was also promoted back to the new parent company

China Baowu Steel Group China Baowu Steel Group Corp., Ltd., commonly known as Baowu, is a state-owned iron and steel company headquartered in the Baosteel Tower in Pudong, Shanghai, China. The company was formed by Baosteel Group absorbing its smaller state-owned p ...

as chairman of the board of directors and the Secretary of the Party Committee. Ma's position in WISCO was replaced by Liu Xiang, the former Deputy

General Manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of WISCO. Liu was also appointed as the Deputy General Manager of China Baowu Steel Group, on top of his position as the highest-ranking officials of WISCO.

References

External links

* {{authority control Steel companies of China Baowu Manufacturing companies established in 1958 Chinese brands Government-owned companies of China Manufacturing companies based in Wuhan 1958 establishments in China