Its managers were reluctant to take risks, their decisions could hardly be described as bold. But this year the company got a new chief executive, John Bryant. The merger is very much his deal, an attempt to prove that he is the right man to invigorate the company. The deal has come at just the right time for British Steel. In the last two months steel prices have been rising again.
Analysts say that Asia's economies are on the verge of recovery.
And the merger will be completed in autumn, just when the seasonal summer slump is over and demand is picking up. US steel producers have been badgering their government for many months that they are being undercut by cheap imports. The US government is already investigating Japanese steel imports. European producers could get caught in the fracas. It will not help that transatlantic trade relations are under strain already, because of disputes over beef, bananas and genetically-modified food.