Liberty Steel Group Holdings UK Ltd (LHG), which is also referred to as Liberty House or Liberty House UK, is a British industrial and metals company founded in the United Kingdom in 1992 by industrialist

Sanjeev Gupta Sanjeev Gupta (born September 1971) is an Indian-born British businessman, and the founder of Liberty House Group. He is the CEO and chairman of GFG Alliance, an international conglomerate that operates primarily in the steel and mining indu ...

. It is headquartered in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, and has offices in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. The holding company of Liberty Steel, Liberty House Group PTE Ltd is based in

. The company focuses on ferrous and non-ferrous metal trading, metals recycling, steel and aluminium production, and engineering products and services. Gupta controls it through his vehicle

GFG Alliance Gupta Family Group Alliance (GFG Alliance) is an international group of businesses associated with businessman Sanjeev Gupta and the British Gupta family. Collectively, companies in the alliance are involved in mining, industry and trading. Histo ...

History

LHG was founded by Sanjeev Gupta in 1992. LHG, together with the SIMEC Group, part of the

, purchased the

Lochaber Lochaber ( ; gd, Loch Abar) is a name applied to a part of the Scottish Highlands. Historically, it was a provincial lordship consisting of the parishes of Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig, as they were before being reduced in extent by the creatio ...

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

smelter plant as well as the

Laggan Dam Laggan Dam is a dam located on the River Spean south west of Loch Laggan in the Scottish Highlands. History The structure was built as part of the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme by Balfour Beatty for the British Aluminium Company and construction ...

from

Rio Tinto Rio Tinto, meaning "red river", may refer to: Businesses * Rio Tinto (corporation), an Anglo-Australian multinational mining and resources corporation ** Rio Tinto Alcan, based in Canada ** Rio Tinto Borax in America *** Rio Tinto Borax Mine, ...

in November 2016. In February 2017, LHG agreed to purchase the specialty steel division of

Tata Steel Europe Tata Steel Europe Ltd. (formerly Corus Group plc) was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company was created in 2007, when Tata Group took over the ...

for £100 million. The purchase included the division's facilities in

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

, Stocksbridge and

Brinsworth Brinsworth is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. It is situated close to the River Rother between Rotherham (to the north-east) and Sheffield (to the south-west). At the time of ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

and

Wednesbury Wednesbury () is a market town in Sandwell in the county of West Midlands, England. It is located near the source of the River Tame. Historically part of Staffordshire in the Hundred of Offlow, at the 2011 Census the town had a population of 3 ...

in the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

. In July 2017, LHG purchased

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

n steelmaker

Arrium Arrium was an Australian mining and materials company, employing nearly 10,000 workers, that went into voluntary administration in 2016 with debts of more than $2 billion. In 2017 it was acquired by British-owned Liberty House Group. Hist ...

Whyalla steelmaker Arrium to be sold to British company Liberty House
''

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

'' 5 July 2017 which was rebadged LibertyOneSteel for the first year of ownership and is now Liberty Steel. In October 2019, GFG Alliance promised to merge its steel assets into Liberty Steel Group by year end. In 2020, LHG received

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

approval to purchase the

Duffel Duffel () is a municipality in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises only the town of Duffel proper. On 1 January 2020, Duffel had a total population of 17,664. The total area is 22.71 km² which gives a population den ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

plant of aluminium smelter operator

Aleris Aleris Corporation (also Aleris Inc. or Aleris International Inc.) was an American aluminum rolled products producer, based in Beachwood, Ohio. The company had approximately 5,000 employees globally as of mid 2015. On 15 April 2020, Aleris Corpor ...

which cleared the way for the purchase of Aleris by

Novelis Novelis Inc. is an American industrial aluminum company, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is an independent subsidiary of multinational aluminium and copper manufacturing company Hindalco Industries. Novelis is a producer of r ...

. On 19 February 2021

ThyssenKrupp ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational conglomerate. It is the result of the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and has its operational headquarters in Duisburg a ...

(TK) ended discussions with Liberty Steel, which had proposed to take over the former's steel unit. The TK plant at

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in No ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

was valued by the owner at €1.5 billion but TK posted a €960 million loss in 2020 and Liberty sought to dispossess TK for no or reverse payment. On 31 March 2021 Credit Suisse filed insolvency proceedings against Liberty Commodities (a LHG subsidiary) in a London court. The action was brought by a unit of another bank, Citigroup, which was acting under instruction from Credit Suisse. The Swiss bankers are on the hook for a $10 billion fund part of which was invested in

Greensill Capital Greensill Capital was a financial services company based in the United Kingdom and Australia. It focused on the provision of supply chain financing and related services. The company was founded in 2011 by Lex Greensill. It filed for insolvency ...

which had placed $3.6 billion in LHG parent company GFG, part of which had funnelled down to LCL. The balance sheet of Credit Suisse would absorb significant damage as a result. On 2 April 2021, Gupta claimed that none of its plants would close under his watch as he raced to refinance his business after the collapse of financial backer Greensill. Liberty Steel had 3,000 employees, while GFG Alliance had another 2,000 in other UK metals and engineering businesses. In April 2021, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Kwasi Kwarteng Akwasi Addo Alfred Kwarteng (born 26 May 1975) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Spelthorne (UK Parliament constituency), S ...

rejected a request to bail LSG out. In February 2022,

HM Revenue & Customs , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = HM Revenue & Customs.svg , logocaption = , badge = , badgecaption = , flag = , flagcaption = , image_size = , co ...

sought winding up petitions against four LSG subsidiaries.Four Gupta steel firms face winding up orders
''BBC News'' 10 February 2022

References

External links

*{{official website, https://www.libertysteelgroup.com 1992 establishments in England British companies established in 1992 Steel companies based in London Manufacturing companies established in 1992 Aluminium smelters