Two bidders emerge for Tata Steel UK mills

Media reports indicate two groups led by two different wealthy backers are preparing bids for the British steel mill complexes being sold by India’s Tata Steel Europe subsidiary.

An online article by The Guardian says a group called Excalibur Steel, “supported by Welsh billionaire Sir Terry Matthews,” is one potential buyer while the other is Liberty House, a “metals group run by tycoon Sanjeev Gupta.”

The Guardian article refers to the Excalibur Steel bid as a “management buyout” whose bid could yet be derailed by “concerns about funding and pensions.”

The Liberty House bid, confirmed in a Reuters report, may entail a switch to more scrap-intensive electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. The group has “plans to shift Tata Steel UK’s operations away from steelmaking in blast furnaces to recycling steel in electric arc furnaces,” according to Reuters.

The two bidders are interested in the Port Talbot steelmaking complex in Wales in the United Kingdom, which produces slab, hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanised coiled steel. The Tata Europe operations in the U.K. are said to affect some 40,000 jobs in a larger supply chain, according to The Guardian.

A successful bidder is likely to work in cooperation with the British government, which has said it will support efforts to keep the steelmaking complex open.