The real power of a well-crafted corporate theory becomes evident as companies go shopping for the assets to test their theories. Value creation through markets always comes down to prices paid, and a good corporate theory enables the acquirer to spot bargains that are uniquely discerned or uniquely available to it. Mittal Steel is a good example. From its origin in 1976 until 1989, Mittal Steel was a very small player in a global steel industry plagued by low profitability. Its operations consisted solely of a small mill in Indonesia. Mittal applied a then-new iron ore input technology (direct reduced iron, or DRI) to produce steel and afterward simply expanded with the economic growth of Indonesia.
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