NEW YORK — Inoxum Group, ThyssenKrupp AG’s stainless arm, and Finnish stainless producer Outokumpu Oyj will begin operating as a merged entity with the start of the new year.

"We will start operations of (the) combined entity on Jan. 1," a spokesman for Outokumpu told AMM in an e-mail.

A spokeswoman for ThyssenKrupp Stainless USA Inc., the domestic subsidiary of Inoxum that operates a plant in Calvert, Ala., confirmed via e-mail that the merger is officially set to close Jan. 1.

ThyssenKrupp Stainless recently started the melt shop at Calvert (amm.com, Dec. 10), which has an annual stainless slab production capacity of 900,000 tonnes. The company doesn’t yet have an output estimate for 2013.

Outokumpu expects synergies from the €2.7-billion ($3.57-billion) merger, which required the divestiture of Inoxum’s Terni stainless mill in Italy in order to gain approval from the European Commission, to be about €200 million ($264.8 million).

Market sources have speculated about Outokumpu’s approach to running the Calvert plant, citing ThyssenKrupp’s previously stated goal of capturing 25 percent of the U.S. stainless market by 2014 (amm.com, Dec. 14).