Brazilian steelmaker CSN yesterday launched a long-awaited £5.7 billion (€8.4 billion) bid for Corus, trumping within hours a raised offer from India's Tata Steel which valued the Anglo-Dutch steel group at £5.5 billion.

Tata Steel, part of the Tata group, India's biggest industrial conglomerate, said last night it was "considering its position" following the CSN offer and evaluating whether it should again raise its bid.

The battle to control Corus is the latest gambit in the global steel industry following the big rise in valuations in the past five years, which have been triggered by growing consolidation and surging Chinese demand for the metal.

Success for either CSN or Tata in the battle for Corus would lift the victor from being outside the top 50 world steelmakers in annual output terms to become the world's fifth-biggest producer.

Tata Steel on Sunday raised its previous offer of 455p a share to 500p a share in an attempt to pre-empt any move by CSN, which had said it was working on a 475p-a-share bid.

CSN's 515p offer yesterday won agreement from the Corus board, though it has still to be put to shareholders. CSN's bid values Corus's equity at £4.9 billion. The company has £800 million debt, bringing the total value of the bid to £5.7 billion.

The Brazilian company said there was "strategically compelling industrial logic" for a combination with its larger rival Corus. The combined entity would produce 24 million tonnes of steel a year along with, by 2010, approximately 50 million tonnes of iron ore a year. - (Financial Times service)