MSA Buys Assets Of GSE

Management Science Associates, Inc. has signed a letter of intent to purchase the assets of Chicago-based Global Steel Exchange, an Internet steel-trading marketer. GSX was founded in May of 2000 as a joint venture of four major global steel-trading companies, Duferco of Switzerland, Cargill Steel of the U.S., Samsung Corp. of Korea and Arcelor of Luxembourg. 

For MSA, it is the second major purchase of a steel industry e-commerce marketer in the past year. This past October Metals Supply Alliances, LLC, the MSA subsidiary, bought the assets of the former MetalSite and ScrapSite e-commerce websites and is currently operating both of these public marketplaces.  The GSX website was launched in June of 2001 and has since transacted some $350 million worth of business. The website provides the ability to complete buying and selling steel and related raw materials primarily in the international spot market. 

Recently GSX has been developing Private Networks linked to the public marketplace, which is similar to what Metals has been doing with the MetalSite and ScrapSite technology.