26.05.2021. Liberty Steel Group has announced that following very constructive and productive meetings in Dubai, Sanjeev Gupta, and his newly-formed Restructuring and Transformation Committee are in advanced discussions with Credit Suisse Asset Management (CS) to reach a formal standstill agreement on its Liberty Primary Metals Australia business while refinancing is completed that will repay CS out in full.
Both parties also made significant progress in agreeing a framework to resolve GFG Alliance’s remaining exposure with CS.
Protecting jobs and supporting the fulfilment of its vision
This work includes identifying a positive solution which will allow Liberty to complete the restructuring and refinancing of its UK operations, protecting thousands of jobs and supporting the fulfilment of its vision to be a leader in the decarbonisation of the UK steel industry.
As part of this restructuring Liberty will look to sell its aerospace and special alloys steel business in Stocksbridge, which while being a unique, high quality business servicing marquee customers in aerospace, auto and other highly engineered applications, is not core to the Greensteel vision of Liberty.
Developing its Rotherham plant
This sale will allow Liberty to focus on developing its Rotherham plant including its electric arc furnaces into a competitive 2 million t recycled Greensteel plant, one of the largest in Europe. The plant will make use of some of the millions of t of steel scrap currently exported by the UK to make more of the quality steel needed in the UK, which is currently being imported.
Sale of Liberty Aluminium Technologies and Liberty Pressing Solutions
Liberty has also already commenced the formal sale process of Liberty Aluminium Technologies and Liberty Pressing Solutions, working collaboratively with the main customers of these plants to find a sustainable home for these quality businesses, which are also non-core to Liberty’s vision of decarbonised Greensteel.
A formal sale process for Stocksbridge and its downstream plants, the narrow strip mill at Brinsworth and Performance Steels at West Bromwich will be launched shortly.
GFG’s advisers Alvarez & Marsal will run both processes.
Note – 25 May: Operations at Thrybergh, Scunthorpe, Newport, Dalzell, Tredegar and Hartlepool remain core to Liberty Steel UK’s asset base and will provide the downstream capacity to process the additional volume from our plan to increase electric arc furnace production at Rotherham to 2 million t/a.
(Source: Liberty Steel)
