walesonlineWales Online reported that after Tata Steel has
confirmed that it is looking for a possible sell off of its UK assets, who could
buy the huge Port Talbot works and its other operations at Llanwern, Shotton,
Trostre, Rotherham and Corby? There are two likely candidates who have already
been buying up steel plants and businesses around Britain during the crisis of
the last few months - Liberty House and Greybull Capital.
Liberty House is an industrial giant owned by the Gupta family from India.
Based in London, it has offices in Dubai and Singapore and owns mining and
steel assets in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Two years Liberty
bought the former Alphasteel plant at Newport, re-starting production there
last autumn just as other steel plants around Britain were being shut down. It
also bought parts of the Caparo steel business out of administration, and last
week bought Tata's Clydebridge and Dalzell steel facilities in Scotland after
the Scottish Government had temporarily bought the plants to ease the sale.
The other contender is Greybull Capital , which this week was close to
clinching a deal to buy Tata Steel's Long Products division which includes the
Scunthorpe steel works. Based in London, Greybull is family investment company
which tries to turn around under-performing businesses. It was founded by
brothers Marc and Nathaniel Meyohas in 2010. So far it has launched a rescue of
budget airline and holiday business Monarch and last year backed Mike Greene's
takeover of Morrisons convenience stores.
Of the two, Liberty would have the advantage of being able to synergise Tata's
assets with its own existing steel operations both in Britain and worldwide.
But whoever buys the plants would still have to face the same problems that
other UK steel operators including Tata have faced, and in the absence of any
change in the climate they will almost certainly be wanting to cut costs as
part of any recovery plan. So it seems likely that at least some job losses are
inevitable whatever the outcome.
Source : steelguru