UK NRI Sanjeev Gupta of Liberty House To Acquire
Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant in UK
- Sanjeev Gupta will only buy British steel plant Port Talbot if he gets massive subsidies
- UK’ssteel industry is on the brink of collapse and this is mainly because Tata Steel is selling off its UK business
- Port Talbot, one of the UK’s biggest steel plants, loses £1 million a day.
- Gupta already bought two smaller Scottish steel plants from Tata in March.
New York, April 06, 2016
NRIpress.club
UK NRI Sanjeev Gupta, Steel tycoon, the head of steel and metals company Liberty House met U.K. Business Secretary Sajid Javid to know what kind of government support his commodities firm could get. He told the New Media that he like to see Remove pension liabilities, Remove environmental liabilities and Lower power costs for steel plants.
After the meeting, Sajid Javid has said the government would consider all options to help the India-based steelmaker secure a buyer, including potential state aid on matters such as pension-fund liabilities, energy costs, and stronger U.K.steel procurement guidelines on government contracts.
Port Talbot Steelworks producing nearly 5 million tonnes of steel slab per annum, making it the largest of all three major steel plants in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. Gupta said it would take years to make the Tata Steel business viable, but added that his Liberty House company was interested in acquiring the assets, including the Port Talbot site in south Wales, which employs 4,000 workers. Tata’s total UK workforce is 15,000.
Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty House Group is an international steel and non-ferrous metals group, operating from its 4 financial hubs in London, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong with a network of offices spread across 30 countries around the world. The Group has interests in a wide range of strategic assets in Asia, Africa and the United Kingdom.
Liberty House Group is employing over 2000 people globally, Total production capacity in steel exceeds 3 million MT per annum and annual turnover is approaching USD 5 billion, covering steel, raw materials and non-ferrous metals. The latest acquisition of the Group is a 1.5m MT per annum steel plant in Wales that was set up as an integrated producer of steel based on the EAF route with a downstream hot rolling mill.
Sanjeev Gupta, 44, was born in Punjab, India and his father was an industrialist who owned a number of businesses including Victor Cycles. At 12 he was sent to a boarding school at Canterbury, Kent. He got his start in business selling bicycles in Turkey before moving to England to study economics at Cambridge University.
Gupta graduated from Cambridge in 1995 and also received Masters from Trinity College Cambridge.
Meet Sanjiv Gupta, man seen as potential buyer of Tata Steel UK
Mumbai, April 6, 2016: He has emerged as the man to watch out for when Tata Steel initiates the formal process to sell its UK assets. Meet Sanjiv Kumar Gupta, founder of the UK-based Liberty House.
Gupta is the key man British Business Secretary Sajid Javid met in London on Tuesday, just before flying to Mumbai for a meeting with Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry. Gupta, in fact, has already indicated his intention to stop widespread job losses in Tata Steel UK.
“I am pleased to report we had a positive meeting today. UK government appears highly supportive and is proactively engaged in finding a long-term solution,” Gupta is quoted as saying after his meeting with Javid.
“The next step is for Tata (Group) to define the formal sales process and request indications of interest from potential buyers. We await further details on this and then will assess our own next step.”
For the record, Liberty Group has revenues approaching $5 billion, covering steel, raw materials and non-ferrous metals, while employing more than 2,000 people globally. It also produces about 5 million tonnes per annum of steel and steel products.
Gupta is also not new to takeovers.
Ten days ago, Tata Steel UK announced it has reached an accord to sell its Clydebridge and Dalzell steel facilities in Scotland. The deal involved the sale of the two plants to the Government of Scotland, which was to, in turn, sell them on to Liberty House.
Prior to that, Gupta’s group had acquired a 1.5 million tonnes per annum steel plant in Wales that was set up as an integrated producer of steel based on electric arc furnace route with downstream hot rolling mill.
This complex was shut for over two years, before Liberty’s takeover. Now the mill’s operations have commenced and plans are on the anvil to eventually revamp the steel melting shop and grow the rated capacities of the mill — a testimony to Gupta’s turnaround skills.
Liberty’s other investments include medium-sized mills and service centres in markets such as India and Ghana to strategic stakes in large producers, like a 2.5 million tonne per annum mill for steel and value added products.
As per the group’s website, it operates from four financial hubs in London, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong with a network of offices spread across 30 countries around the world.
And “SKG”, as Gupta is called by his peers, comes from a successful business family of Punjab. The 44-year-old left for Britain when he was 12 years old as a resident student at St. Edmunds College, Canterbury, in Kent.
He graduated from the Cambridge in 1995 and was subsequently awarded his Master’s from Trinity College. Since then, he has been trading in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
“From 2000 onward, SKG’s focus has been on growing the trade in steel, metals and raw materials while developing the industrial asset base of the group,” the Liberty website said…..IANS
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British minister, Tatas hold talks on British steel units
Mumbai, April 6, 2016: The Tata Group on Wednesday sought the British government’s help in finding a suitable buyer for its floundering steel assets in Britain, while also exploring the possibility of a third party independent auditor to oversee the transition.
The main focus of the talks was to avert over 40,000 job losses at Tata Steel UK.
These issues were discussed at a meeting between British Business Secretary Sajid Javid, who flew into this city to specifically hold talks with the Tata Group top brass led by chairman Cyrus Mistry.
Speaking to reporters here following the meeting, Javid called it “constructive and positive” and said the Tata Group was a “responsible company”, adding it had told him that a “reasonable amount of time” would be allowed for the sale process.
Among parties that had shown interest in purchasing the Tata assets, the British business secretary only named Liberty Steel.
India-born, London-based businessman Sanjiv Kumar Gupta, founder of the UK-based Liberty House, is touted as a strong contender to take over Tata Steel’s British assets. He was one of the potential buyers Javid met in London before flying out to Mumbai.
Earlier, British Prime Minister David Cameron held emergency talks in London with his colleagues to tackle the crisis, amid warnings that the firm has just weeks for a rescue deal.
The Labour Party has termed it a national crisis and wants the UK steel industry to be nationalised.
Having suffered nearly $3 billion in losses on the British operations, Tata Steel last week said it will explore options to put its entire portfolio there up for sale, some 10 years after it forayed into Europe by acquiring the Anglo-Dutch Corus for over $8.1 billion
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