Melbourne, Australia ? Australia’s largest steel maker, BlueScope Steel Ltd., launched a $205 million bid for troubled U.S. group Butler Manufacturing Co. on Monday, aiming to boost its presence in China.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Butler gives BlueScope greater access to China, which has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest consumer of steel, and an opportunity to strengthen its position in higher-margin steel products, the company said.

Butler has 550 employees in the Kansas City area and 4,500 worldwide. It is led by Kansas University graduate John Holland, who is the company’s CEO. It was not immediately known what effect the deal may have on Butler’s work force.

The bid is to be recommended by Butler directors, and will represent a $22.50 per share bid for 6.4 million shares and assumption of net debt of $60 million.

The bid represents a 2 percent premium to Friday’s close of $22.10, but a 30 percent premium to Butler’s $17.35 close on Oct. 30 when the company said it might put itself up for sale and warned it was not in compliance with some covenants.

Butler designs, manufactures and installs pre-engineered steel buildings in North America and China. It ran into financial strife amid a slowdown in nonresidential construction in the United States, where demand for buildings for the manufacturing sector has suffered for years.

BlueScope said Butler’s U.S. conditions were improving.

In China, Butler has become a key supplier of pre-engineered steel buildings, which can be put together quickly at the building site, cutting costs compared with slower methods.

“The jewel is obviously the Chinese exposure, which fits very clearly with what they have said before,” said Mark Cotton, Macquarie Equities analyst.

“Strategically, certainly parts of it make a whole lot of sense,” he added.

“We think we have hit the U.S. turnaround at the right time, we think we have hit the China market at the right time,” said Kirby Adams, chief executive of BlueScope.

Adams said BlueScope had conducted 12 weeks of extensive due-diligence and believed it could significantly improve Butler’s profit performance.