Film

The Deal

Brazil, India, South Africa – many countries were interested in the Dortmund plant, but none wanted to offer anything higher than the scrappage price. Only Luan Wei, head of the Bochum trading house Famous Industrial was prepared to invest in the coking plant including disassembly and transport – a deal worth 60 million euros in total, a fact which became known despite the confidentiality agreement concluded between the negotiation partners. Experts surmise that the pure purchase price corresponds to about half of that amount. Luan felt that the enormous demand for steel in China’s booming economy and his good connections with his native country would make it easier for him to sell the coking plant on to a Chinese firm. This was a very risky venture, despite the fact that he had already taken a number of factories from Europe to the “Middle Kingdom” – including 48 industrial facilities that were considered inefficient in Germany such as the coal processing plants in Bergkamen and Hückelhoven. Luan’s gamble paid off. In January 2003, just two months after signing the contract with DSK, a major player expressed its interest: the state company, Yangkuang, wanted to acquire the plant for the town of Jining in the north eastern province of Shandong and quickly sent the first engineers to Dortmund, to plan what was one of the largest industrial relocations in history and simultaneously the first ever relocation of a coking plant in the world. Since that time, the Chinese demand for foreign factories has continued to grow and Luan’s lucrative business is flourishing. For Famous Industrial the search for decommissioned coking plants and other factories goes on. The “Golden Age of Disassembly” has begun.