In 1862 Boucquéau founded the railway company Société du Chemin de Fer de Braine-le-Comte à Gand, the financial demands of the rail project brought Boucquéau to near bankruptcy, but was rescued with the financial aid of Gustave Boël, an accountant within his business.

The foundry of the firm was supplied by three 12 ton Martin process steel converters including facilities for rolling wheels and axles, a casting shop, and running gear manufacturing.

[8][9] Governmental financing for Hoogoven's rescue investment in UGB La Louvière could not be agreed and the plant was sold to Duferco in 1999,[10][11] with the state of Wallonia holding half the shareholding.

(€99 million)[12] The decision to demolish all blast furnace at the site was made by Duferco in the late 1990s, with demolition taking place in the early 2000s[13] In 2006 Duferco formed a joint venture, Steel Invest & Finance S.A., (SIF) (Luxembourg) with NLMK (Russia) covering all its European and USA steel operations.

[12][14] At the time of the formation of the jv the works (Duferco La Louvière S.A.) had hot and cold rolling and wire rod production facilities of 2, 1.6 and 0.36 million tons respectively pa, and employed 1508.

[14][15] In 2011 the SIF joint venture was terminated, with Durferco keeping the long products activities including the EAF, whilst NLMK kept the flat products operations - at La Louviere the plant was split between the two businesses, with Duferco to supply the NLMK part of the plant with slabs in the short term (200,000 tons pa for 3 years.