Liberty House Group acquisition of Tata Steel's Northern England and Scottish assets

Overview:

• Liberty House Group has acquired Tata Steel's North of England specialty steel business for £100 million, following up their acquisition of the company's Dalzell and Clydebridge plants in Lanarkshire for a nominal fee.
• The business has 1700 employees and produces steel for the aviation, automotive and oil and gas industries.
• The wider acquisition process began with Liberty looking at the Dalzell and Clydebridge steel works. The company then followed up with a ultimately unsuccessful bid for the Port Talbot steelworks.
• In the case of Dalzell and Clydebridge an earlier bid by Greybull Capital (advised by Forsters) had been turned down as it did not guarantee the future of the plants.
• The future of Tata's UK works has been a source of much political attention due to the threat to jobs in areas of the country where industry is increasingly scarce. This led to business secretary Sajid Javid announcing a package of Government support including financial incentives. As a result Tata Steel reversed its decision to pull out of the UK completely, securing for now the future of 11,000 jobs.

Sam Duke - Editor