Tata offers its UK plants for sale

Port Talbot Steel Works

Tata Steel begins the formal process of selling its unprofitable UK plants, invites all interested bidders to submit their proposals.

Until now, the only company that has publicly expressed interest in Liberty Steel, owned by Sanjeev Gupta.

Thousands of workers in England and Wales at risk of losing their jobs if the deal can not be struck.
However, the BBC understands that the city investment firm agrees to buy the Tata Scunthorpe plant on Monday.

Greybull Capital is in talks to buy the business for several months, and is expected to invest up to £ 400 million.

This step will ensure that more than 4,000 jobs, but workers are asked to take a pay cut and less generous pension arrangements.

'Risk'

At the same time, Mr. Gupta said in an interview Sunday Telegraph, that he felt like "a very clear opportunity to turn things around, earn money and build a sustainable business."


But he added: "I feel passionately about this and would like to do it, but I'm not married to him.
"It's too big thing for us to get wrong. This may put the entire company at risk."

Tata is known to want a quick sale. Business Secretary Sajid Javid said last week after talks in India that Tata told him that it would allow a "reasonable amount of time" for the sales process.

He added that he expected that the other interested parties to come forward after the formal sale process began.

Sajid Javid met the chairman of Tata Cyrus Mistry for the first time since the company announced the sale last week.

UK steel crisis

Mr. Javid, who was on a business trip to Australia, when Tata first announced it plans to sell its British Steel, is under pressure over its handling of the crisis.

Business Secretary admitted that he was caught by surprise the announcement of Tata, says the BBC that while he knew, the company is reviewing its operations in the UK, the company went "well beyond what we expected."

Trade unions accuse the business secretary of "taking his eye off the ball" and called on him to resign, if the buyer is not found for the steel.

Tata Steel directly employs 15,000 workers in the UK, through the plants at Port Talbot, Rotherham, and the Corby Shotton, and supports thousands of jobs.

German group ThyssenKrupp are also reported to be interested in the acquisition of the operations of Tata Steel UK.

Tata Steel said that there is "no fixed timeline" for the sales process, but stressed that the urgency required, in order to avoid "a long period of uncertainty" for employees and customers.

Steel industry crisis was due to a fall in prices and a global oversupply. In the UK, high energy prices and cheaper Chinese imports have exacerbated the problem.