SB: What was it that these governments said that really rankled you? That made you angry, even as emotional as you were?

LM: I read in the media that they started talking about Indian company, companies from East coming to the West, some kind of funny money, or monkey money. These kinds of comments were not justified. We are an open company based in, listed in the New York Stock Exchange, a global international steel company. We are not an unknown company in the steel industry. We were the largest steel company in the world, and we wanted to merge with the second largest company, and that was the merger between the two open companies. So I, we, felt that this was the best merger opportunity for the steel industry.

SB: Why did you feel that way?

LM: The steel industry has always been fragmented and I've been saying since 97, 98 that the steel industry needs to be consolidated, and the process began but did not take momentum. Then came 2000, when the industry suffered very badly. At that period, everyone realized that the steel industry should be consolidated.

SB: While you were talking to Arcelor, the CEO of Arcelor said : "Hey listen! We are a European company and we actually manufacture perfume. You Mittal Steel manufacture sub-standard products. You are the manufacturers of Eau de cologne", these were his exact words. You are smiling now, but you weren't then...

LM: They are very emotional comments. They are not rational comments.

SB: But they angered you.

LM: Fine. That's part of the fight. But now the history is behind us. And the integration between the two companies have begun very well, we have an excellent team in place. I would say that we have the best management team in the steel industry in the world and we have been able to put top class team. They have started integration since six weeks, and I have been seeing the progress. I am really pleased with the progress, what we have made with the company.

SB: Now when you look back at this deal, Lakshmi, this is about a person who was born in India, based in London, taking over a French company, based in Luxemburg. Is this a sign of the new global times that we live in?

LM: Yes this is the real global company, and is a sign of globalization. Even in the top 24 senior management, I have eight nationalities. We have people from all the major worlds and if you look at our top 400 people we would be having at least 35 nationalities in the group. So, I can clearly see that how a global company should function and why such diversity at the top management is very important and is key to success.

SB: Earlier, just before the merger, you made one promise and you repeated that several times. You said 3 words: "No job cuts". Will you live up to that?

LM: Yes. We have always

SB: In good times and b

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