U.S. Steel shares stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday after Japan’s Nippon Steel completed its acquisition of the iconic American industrial name.
President Donald Trump has insisted for weeks that the companies would form a “partnership” in which U.S. Steel would remain American-owned.
But the New York Stock Exchange notified the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday that U.S. Steel’s shares would be removed from listing, after the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Steel North America.
U.S. Steel shares stopped trading at 8:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday after Nippon completed its acquisition, according to a notice from the NYSE. The delisting will be effective on June 30, NYSE said.
Trump opposed Nippon’s bid to acquire U.S. Steel in the runup to the 2024 presidential election, but he changed his stance after he took office, ordering a new review of the deal in April. Former President Joe Biden had blocked Nippon’s acquisition in January, citing national security concerns.
Trump announced a “partnership” between U.S. and Nippon in a May 23 post on his social media platform Truth Social, causing confusion among investors and union members about whether the structure of the original deal had changed somehow.
U.S. Steel and Nippon started adopting the president’s “partnership” language, though they never backed off from the terms of the original December 2023 merger agreement in their filings with SEC. U.S. Steel will continue to operate under its name.
Golden share
Trump did compel U.S. Steel and Nippon to sign a national security agreement with the U.S. government as a condition for him clearing the deal.
The U.S. president will wield a “golden share” under the terms of the agreement. U.S. Steel said Wednesday that the golden share gives the president veto power over the following decisions:
- Changing U.S. Steel’s name or moving its headquarters from Pittsburgh
- Moving U.S. Steel outside the U.S.
- Moving production or jobs outside the U.S.
- Some decisions regarding the closure or idling of U.S. Steel’s domestic manufacturing facilities, trade, labor, and sourcing outside the U.S.
- Reductions in capital investments under the national security agreement
- Material acquisitions of competing businesses in the U.S.
A majority of U.S. Steel’s board members and its CEO will be U.S. citizens, according to the terms of the national security agreement. Nippon also agreed that U.S. Steel will remain incorporated in the U.S.
Nippon will invest $11 billion in U.S. Steel by 2028, including $1 billion in initial spending on a greenfield project that will be completed after 2028, according to the agreement.
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