Chinese steelmaker Jingye has acquired British Steel and its steelworks at Scunthorpe, Skinningrove and on Teesside, as well as subsidiary businesses TSP Engineering and FN Steel.
There are 449 redundancies as part of the deal but 3,200 jobs saved, since British Steel had been in receivership
According to the government, it has secured guarantees that Jingye will invest £1.2bn into the business over the next 10 years.
Initiatives include the development of an electric arc furnace in Teesside, the construction of a new 250MW power plant to serve the Scunthorpe site, investment in the rolling mills and a new rebar line.
Stockholder Barrett Steel has taken over British Steel distribution centres in Wolverhampton, Dartford, Newcastle and Scunthorpe as well as offices in Cheadle and Edinburgh, along with 75 British Steel employees.
British Steel was previously owned by India’s Tata Group until it was sold for just £1 to venture capitalists in 2016. It went into insolvency in May 2019.
Business secretary Alok Sharma said: “The sale of British Steel represents an important vote of confidence in the UK’s steel industry. It also marks the start of a new era for those regions that have built their livelihoods around industrial steel production.”
Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the steelworkers’ trade union Community, said: “Today marks the start of a new chapter for British Steel. It has been a long and difficult journey to get to this point. In particular, this acquisition is a testament to all the efforts of the world class workforce, who even through the uncertainty, have broken production records. Today would also not have been possible without the government recognising the importance of steel as a key foundation industry. The decision to support the business through to new ownership is an example of positive industrial strategy at work. The government can build on this with more action to create the right environment for all our steel producers to thrive.”
Based in the Hebei province in China, Jingye had total sales of £10.1bn last year and employs 23,500 people. It also has operations in chemicals, hotels, real estate, and trade.
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