Amtek Auto in talks to buy OCL Iron & Steel-paper

MUMBAI, April 23 (Reuters) - Auto-parts maker Amtek Auto Ltd (AMTK.BO) is in talks to buy OCL Iron and Steel Ltd (OISL) (OCLI.BO) in a deal that could value the company at around 3.5 billion rupees, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Amtek is looking to acquire a steel company with captive iron ore coal mines as part of its strategy of backward integration, Business Standard newspaper quoted a senior Amtek official it didn't name as saying.

OCL Iron and Steel has captive iron ore mines of around 5 million tonnes and coal mines of around 20 million tonnes. It also has a 20,000 tonne a year sponge iron unit and is settin up a blast furnace, the paper said.

Amtek Auto officials were not immediately available for comment, when contacted by Reuters.

OISL was originally a wholly owned subsidiary of OCL (OSCM.BO) and was spun off into a separate company in 2006.

The deal could be closed as early as next month through a special purpose vehicle that will be funded by the promoters and partially funded by Amtek Auto, the paper said, quoting unnamed sources.

(Reporting by Aniruddha Basu & Jasudha Kirpalani; Editing by Ramya Venugopal)