CHICAGO — ALJ Regional Holdings Inc. has cleared one hurdle as it looks to sell special bar quality (SBQ) and merchant bar quality steel flats producer Kentucky Electric Steel LLC (KES) to Optima Specialty Steel Inc.

The Ashland, Ky.-based parent of KES said late Monday that the antitrust review period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 expired Friday. That expiration satisfies one of the closing conditions of the sale, ALJ said.

The deal still remains subject to other conditions, including approval by ALJ shareholders as well as the receipt of debt financing by Miami-based Optima Specialty Steel, ALJ said.

The companies announced plans for ALJ to sell KES to Optima for $112.5 million last month (amm.com, Nov. 20).

Optima Specialty Steel president and chief executive officer Kevin Stevick told AMM the company planned to modify KES’s facilities to make SBQ rounds, the feedstock needed to make SBQ flats as well the seamless tubular products manufactured by Michigan Seamless Tube LLC and the cold-finished bar products made by Niagara LaSalle Corp., the two companies that were brought together to form Optima Specialty Steel (amm.com, Dec. 13, 2011).