Mittal Steel Arcelor offer opens today

Mittal Steel Company N.V. (Mittal Steel) announced that following coordination among the European regulators, the information document relating to its offer for Arcelor shares and convertible bonds was approved today by the Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, the Belgian Commission Bancaire, Financiere et des Assurances and the French Autorite des marches financiers. The information document is expected to be approved by the Spanish Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores in the near future.

According to a release on the company website, the Dutch Autoriteit Financiele Markten also approved the share listing prospectus today prepared for the issuance of new Mittal Steel class A common shares in connection with the offer, and for the admission of such shares to trading on Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Brussels, Euronext Paris, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the Spanish Stock Exchanges. The share listing prospectus is "passported" into Luxembourg, Belgium, France and Spain under EU prospectus legislation.

The acceptance period for the offer in Luxembourg, Belgium and France will start on the date on which the information document will be published, i.e., on 18 May 2006 (except in Spain, where the acceptance period will commence on the date indicated in the Spanish version of the information document expected to be approved by the CNMV), and will close 30 business day later, i.e., on 29 June 2006.

The acceptance period for the offer in the United States will start on the date that the registration statement on Form F-4 currently under review by the SEC is declared effective.

Lakshmi N. Mittal, chairman and chief executive of Mittal Steel, said: "We are delighted to have today received approval from most of the securities regulators on our offer documentation for our tender offer on Arcelor. Now, shareholders will have the opportunity to decide for themselves on the value and merits of our proposal. We remain excited about the prospects of our offer, which is based on very sound industrial logic and provides tremendous value creation potential. We believe that stakeholders in the steel industry appreciate the need for further consolidation and recognise the benefits it can bring in creating a more sustainable operating environment. The Mittal/Arcelor combination would define the model of the future, creating a financially strong, balanced, global market leader, ideally positioned to exploit growth opportunities in a consolidating industry."