£100m Tata Steel sale secures hundreds of Black Country jobs

Hundreds of jobs in the Black Country steel industry have been secured with the sale of Tata Steel to industrials group Liberty House.

Tata employs more than 600 people in the Black Country – 450 alone at its plant in Wednesfield – and there had been fears many of these could be lost when the company announced last year its intention to sell the business.

The deal also increases Liberty House’s stake in the West Midlands steel and steel processing sector, following its acquisition of Covpress last month and the deal secured at the end of 2015 to acquire the assets of the Caparo group.

The agreement with Tata Steel UK is to acquire its high-profile Speciality Steels business for a total consideration of £100m.

In total, the deal secures the future of around 1,700 jobs directly, and thousands more in the supply chain and regional economy. The sale follows an extensive due diligence period, after the parties entered exclusive discussions in November 2016.

It will make Liberty one of the largest steel and engineering employers in the UK with more than 4,000 workers at plants located across Britain’s industrial heartlands.

Speciality Steels, which makes high-value steels for the aerospace, automotive and oil & gas industries has manufacturing facilities in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth in South Yorkshire and Wednesbury, as well as service centres located in Bolton, and in China.

The business has the capability to make around 1.1m tonnes of liquid steel per year from recycled scrap, melted in two electric arc furnaces at Rotherham. This steel feeds downstream casting, re-melting and rolling processes, producing a range of high-value steels.

Liberty House has a vertically-integrated business model ranging from the production of raw steel and aluminium through to advanced engineered products.  The group is already a Tier 1 supplier of steel components to the automotive and aerospace sectors and the Speciality business will allow it to expand its product range significantly.

Commenting on the deal, Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of the Liberty House Group said: “I am proud that we are acquiring a world-class business with a very skilled workforce and broad range of high-value products.  It is one of only a handful of such operations in the world and I am confident it will flourish within our group.”

Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “Acquiring Tata’s Speciality Steels business in South Yorkshire and West Midlands, which manufactures high quality steel for some of the UK’s world leading industries such as aerospace and automotive is a great opportunity for Liberty House. I look forward to hearing more about their expansion plans which secures skilled jobs at the business into the future.”

Liberty House and its advisers will work towards the completion of the transaction as soon as possible. Macquarie Capital (Europe) acted as financial adviser to Liberty House in the acquisition.

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