Though Tata Steel’s United Kingdom assets in Port Talbot, South Wales, reportedly are bleeding over 1.4 million pounds ($2.06 million) a day, there are good reasons it could take more time to finalize the bidding.
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Liberty House and a management buyout team will submit separate bids for Tata UK when the deadline closes on Monday.
“There has been a lot of speculation that any sale of Tata’s assets would involve the BSPS going into the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). The Government must reverse course”.
FEARS are growing that Tata has been unable to find a buyer for its United Kingdom operation, with one Westminster source telling City A.M. that the Indian giant’s retention of the business is now “a racing certainty”.
Tata’s executive director Koushik Chatterjee said: ‘The government support was amid a backdrop of a restructuring and divestment process.
United Kingdom business secretary Sajid Javid is in Mumbai for talks with the Tata Group over the potential bids for its United Kingdom steelworks and is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons tomorrow. “Determined to keep momentum and find right buyer”, tweeted Mr.Javid after the meeting.
“It’s the scheme’s trustees that have come forward and asked us to look at current legislation because they believe it would lead to better outcomes for their members”. It is hoped a sale will be completed by the end of June.
The government has said such support is likely to take the form of loans on commercial terms, and could see the government take an equity stake of up to 25 per cent. As I’ve always said there are no guarantees. Prime Minister David Cameron said that there has been an encouraging number of serious offers. “We’ve got to stick at it to try to bring this to successful conclusion”, he said.
“The government must also now make every effort to support the United Kingdom steel industry by acting on energy costs, procurement and Chinese dumping”.
After suffering losses for nearly a decade, Tata Steel in March made a decision to sell its entire United Kingdom business, including Britain’s largest steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales.
There are seven potential buyers, ranging from the Port Talbot steelworks’ management to the United Kingdom steel industry investors Liberty House, run by Indian-origin businessman Sanjeev Gupta, and Greybull Capital to potential trade buyers from China, America and elsewhere in India.
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“We have to secure the manufacturing base in the United Kingdom”, steel worker Ian Williams, 32, from Tata’s Port Talbot plant in south Wales, told Reuters. Greybull Capital LLP last month agreed to buy Tata Steel’s Scunthorpe steelworks in England as well as mills in Teesside and northern France.
