Ukraine’s Metinvest closes down Romanian pipemaker one year after takeover

Romania Insider · 02.11.2026, 07:46:09

The company was taken over in 2025 by Ukraine’s Metinvest group, controlled by businessman Rinat Akhmetov. Metinvest explained that Russia had bombed the plant in Ukraine from which the raw material processed in Iași was sourced, according to Ziarul de Iași . Of the company’s 195 employees, 194 are targeted by a collective redundancy procedure that is about to be initiated. The County Employment Agency and the Territorial Labour Inspectorate have already been notified. The company has announced severance payments: employees with more than ten years of service will receive RON 10,000 (EUR 2,000), while those with more than 30 years will receive RON 25,000 (EUR 5,000). The general manager is not included in the collective redundancy list, but the business is no longer continuing. "The company's business model was based on access to hot-rolled steel coils supplied by a plant in Ukraine. Russia's armed attacks in August 2026 led to the suspension of operations and affected the activity of the company in Iași," the notification sent on Friday, October 30, to the labour offices AJOFM and ITM states. The Iași company said it explored several alternatives, including turning to the European market for raw material supplies. However, company representatives said that alternative European products are significantly more expensive, costing approximately EUR 110 per tonne more than the material supplied from Ukraine. The takeover of the former Tepro Iași factory, later known as ArcelorMittal Tubular Products, by Ukrainian group Metinvest, controlled by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, was one of the most important industrial transactions in Iași County in recent years. The deal was announced in the autumn of 2025 and finalised towards the end of the same year, after obtaining European approval. The transaction involved the acquisition of 100% of the shares in the Iași-based company, previously owned by the ArcelorMittal group, associated with billionaire Lakshmi Mittal. On November 2