British Steel (2016–present)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

British Steel Limited is a
long steel products In steel industry terminology, long steel products or long products refers to steel products including wire, rod, rail, and bars as well as types of steel structural sections and girders. The term long products may include hot rolled bar, cold rol ...
business owned by Chinese company Jingye Group. It was founded in 2016 with assets acquired from
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 Br ...
by
Greybull Capital Greybull Capital LLP is a private investment company that specialises in medium- to long-term investments in UK-based companies. It was incorporated as a limited liability partnership in April 2010. After the 2008 financial crisis, Greybull's de ...
, before being acquired by Jingye Group in 2020. The primary steel production site is
Scunthorpe Steelworks Scunthorpe Steelworks is a steel mill with blast furnaces in North Lincolnshire, England. As of April 2025, the facility employs around 2,700 people. It is the last plant in the UK capable of producing virgin steel, which is used in major ...
, with rolling facilities at Skinningrove Steelworks,
Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...
.


History

During the 2010s, a combination of reduced demand for steel in Europe after the
2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
and
Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.
and high company indebtedness led to the
Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 c ...
beginning a sales process for the
long products In steel industry terminology, long steel products or long products refers to steel products including wire, rod, rail, and bars as well as types of steel structural sections and girders. The term long products may include hot rolled bar, cold rol ...
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 Br ...
to the Klesch Group. In 2014 the long products division employed approximately 6,500 workers and was operating with 2.8 million tonne p.a. capacity. The division included primary production at Scunthorpe steelworks, mills in Teesside (Teesside beam mill, Skinningrove and Darlington special profiles), France (Hayange rail mill) and Scotland (Dalzell and
Clydebridge The Clydebridge Steelworks, also known as Clydebridge Works, is a steel works in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The plant opened in 1877. The works made steel sheared plates to build ships (among other uses) - plates from Clydebridge were used i ...
), along with other assets, now sold
Immingham Bulk Terminal The Port of Immingham, also known as Immingham Dock, is a major port on the east coast of England, located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary in the town of Immingham, Lincolnshire. In 2019, the Port of Grimsby & Immingham was the largest p ...
. In late 2014 estimates for the value of the property was approximately $1.4 billion. Talks during August 2015 on the acquisition ended unsuccessfully, with Klesch citing energy prices and the dumping of Chinese steel imports as factors against the sale. The Scottish facilities were mothballed in late 2015, and then sold to
Liberty House Group Liberty Steel Group Holdings UK Ltd (LSG), 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. It is headquartered in ...
in 2016. In late 2015 a preliminary agreement was made with
Greybull Capital Greybull Capital LLP is a private investment company that specialises in medium- to long-term investments in UK-based companies. It was incorporated as a limited liability partnership in April 2010. After the 2008 financial crisis, Greybull's de ...
for the sale of the long products division. The sale was agreed to on 11 April 2016 for a nominal £1, with Greybull taking over the assets and liabilities of the division. At takeover the division employed approximately 5,000 workers, predominately in the UK.Sources: * * * * The sale was completed at the end of May 2016, with the resulting business renamed British Steel. As part of the takeover, new agreements were made with workers and unions, including a wage cut, an end to bonus schemes, and the end of a final salary pension scheme. The British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) was not included in the sale. Thanks to a restructuring effort led by Bimlendra Jha (then Executive Chairman of Longs Steel U.K.) Greybull stated that at acquisition the business was profitable. In June 2017, it was reported that the previously loss-making plant at Scunthorpe was once again back in profit, a year after Greybull took the concern over from Tata Steel. The 2015–2016 financial year saw a loss of £79 million, while 2016–2017 produced a profit of £47 million before tax. In light of this, British Steel Limited announced that the 3% pay cut agreed to by the workers on takeover would be reversed.


Insolvency

On 22 May 2019, British Steel was placed into an insolvency process, putting 5,000 jobs in the UK at risk and endangering 20,000 in the supply chain. The move followed a breakdown in rescue talks between the government and the company's owner, Greybull. The Government's Official Receiver took control of the company as part of the insolvency process. Accountancy firm
Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...
took on the role of Special Manager and attempted to find a buyer for the business. UK Prime Minister
Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...
announced to Parliament that
HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury or HMT), and informally referred to as the Treasury, is the Government of the United Kingdom’s economic and finance ministry. The Treasury is responsible for public spending, financial services policy, Tax ...
had "agreed an
indemnity In contract law, an indemnity is a contractual obligation of one party (the ''indemnitor'') to compensate the loss incurred by another party (the ''indemnitee'') due to the relevant acts of the indemnitor or any other party. The duty to indemni ...
for the official receiver to enable British Steel to continue to operate in the immediate future". ''The Guardian'' also reported in the same article that "The number of people employed in UK steel manufacturing has fallen by 300,000 since 1971", from 310,000 to around 10,000. In August 2019,
Oyak Ordu Yardımlaşma Kurumu (OYAK) (English language, English: ''Military Solidarity Institution''), is a Turkish Charity (practice), charity and Turkish Armed Forces, military pension fund with around 470,000 members. The OYAK Holding Investment S ...
, a Turkish army
pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides pension, retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the ...
announced that it planned to take over British Steel by the end of 2019, however talks stalled. In November 2019, Chinese steel manufacturers Jingye Group agreed to buy British Steel for £70 million. The takeover was completed in March 2020 On 12 April 2025, Parliament was recalled to debate a bill presented by the
Business Secretary The secretary of state for business and trade (business secretary), is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business and Trade. The incumb ...
,
Jonathan Reynolds Jonathan Neil Reynolds (born 28 August 1980) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Business and Trade and President of the Board of Trade since July 2024. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he has been ...
, which would enable the government to take control of British Steel, following concerns about the Jingye Group attempting to shut down the Scunthorpe site by intentionally not purchasing supplies of raw materials required to operate its
blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...
s. This was a highly unusual measure, as the last time Parliament was recalled during recess was during the
2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan The 2021 Taliban offensive was a military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and allied militants that led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the nearly 20-year War in Afghanistan that had begun following ...
. Reynolds told MPs the government's likely next step would be to nationalise the Scunthorpe plant, which employs 2,700 people. The legislation hands Reynolds sweeping powers to control management and workers at the plant to ensure production continues, including entering it by force if necessary, to secure assets, but Jingye will retain ownership of it for now. Meanwhile, workers prevented Jingye executives from entering parts of the Scunthorpe plant. Police were called in, though no arrests were made. Within hours, the bill was passed by both chambers of Parliament, received
royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...
and became law as the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act.


Operations

At creation in 2016, the business consisted of: *
Scunthorpe Steelworks Scunthorpe Steelworks is a steel mill with blast furnaces in North Lincolnshire, England. As of April 2025, the facility employs around 2,700 people. It is the last plant in the UK capable of producing virgin steel, which is used in major ...
, England – primary blast furnace based production – bloom, billet, sections, slab, rail and wire rod and is the largest steel factory in the UK. In November 2023 the furnace was announced to close. *
Teesside Steelworks The Teesside Steelworks was a large Steel mill, steelworks that formed a continuous stretch along the south bank of the River Tees from the towns of Middlesbrough to Redcar in North Yorkshire, England. At its height there were 91 blast furnace ...
, England ( Teesside Beam Mill) – heavy sections * Skinningrove Steelworks, England – special sections and crane rail * Former
Sogerail Sogerail (later Corus France SA, 1999; Tata Steel France Rail, 2006) is a French rail manufacturer near Hayange, in the Lorraine region of France. Since the 19th century, its products have been used by various railways across Europe as well as ...
plant, Hayange, France – railway rails * An engineering workshop in Workington


Notes


References

{{Authority control British companies established in 2016 Companies based in Scunthorpe Steel companies of the United Kingdom 2016 establishments in England 2019 mergers and acquisitions