Jobs saved as Greybull Capital revives British Steel

June 2016

Tata Steel has completed the sale of its long products business to Greybull Capital, preserving 4,400 UK jobs and reviving the British Steel name.

Greybull investment firm, has paid a nominal £1 for Tata Steel’s long products business, which makes products such as railway tracks and steel used in construction.

Workers have accepted changes to terms and conditions in April, and a 3% pay cut in a bid to salvage the business, which has been renamed British Steel.

The sale includes the steelworks in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and sites in Teesside, Workington and York. The business also employs about 400 people in France.

Bimlendra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK, said: “As a responsible seller, Tata Steel is delighted to have secured a buyer for this business and we hope that under Greybull Capital ownership, the business will continue the momentum of the improvement programme that has been initiated in the last 12 months.”

Greybull has said that the business had returned to operating profit in the last two months, as a result of a turnaround plan, and that it had £400m ready to invest in the business.

Paul McBean, the chairman of the multi-union committee at the Scunthorpe works, said: “Getting to this point has taken months of work and commitment from our workforce and I thank them for their support and dedication to the steel industry.

“I am delighted we are relaunching our fantastic business as British Steel. It marks a new start, and a new chapter, for our business.”

Marc Meyohas, part of the consortium, said: “Our entire focus has been on getting this deal to where it is and launching British Steel. Being investors in the steel industry you would expect any active shareholder to look at what is going on in the broader market. Tata’s other assets that may be for sale … we are going to be approached and we are going to be looking at that.”

Tata has not yet provided details on its attempts to sell its remaining UK assets that currenly employ 11,000 people.