The name Iscor was laid to rest over the weekend when Ispat Iscor officially changed its name to Mittal Steel South Africa to reflect the global steel empire to which the former parastatal now belongs.
Mittal chief executive Davinder Chugh said the group's two name changes in the past seven months - first from Iscor to Ispat Iscor, and now to Mittal Steel SA - had cost the group about R400 000, including legal costs, signage and letterheads.
"The benefit is coming from the global brand with 70 million tons behind it sold to all corners of the world. That will more than outweigh the costs associated with it," he said.
The journey to form part of the world's biggest steel maker, controlled by billionaire Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, might have seemed improbable to white South Africa's 1920s government, the original shareholder of Iron and Steel Corporation.
After decades of providing sheltered employment for whites, Iscor in 1989 became South Africa's first state-owned entity to be privatised in a R3.7 billion deal that led to its listing on the then Johannesburg Stock Exchange at R2 a share.
The company had been managed like a private entity and so there were no major changes regarding business philosophy. But employee fears of job losses proved to be correct. Over the past 10 years Iscor has shed about 30 000 jobs.
In 2001, the face of Iscor was to change even more. Its profitable iron ore mines were unbundled and listed as Kumba Resources, while former trade and industry minister Alec Erwin facilitated the acquisition of 10 percent of Iscor's remaining assets by Anglo-Dutch group LNM Holdings. The foreign shareholder has lost no time in upping its stake.
The name change to Ispat Iscor came last August after the competition authorities approved LNM's increase of its shareholding in the company to more than 50 percent.
The change to Mittal Steel SA follows the acquisition by Ispat International, 77 percent owned by the Mittal family, of LNM, the family's wholly-owned company, and its merger with International Steel Group in the US to form the world's biggest steel company. The deal has been valued at $17.8 billion (R103.27 billion).
The shares closed 3 percent higher at R66.51 on the JSE Securities Exchange on Friday. The steel and other metals sector gained 2.97 percent