The Indian giant JSW Steel could be interested in buying British Steel, the British steel producer which is in bankrupt since late May. This was reported by the Indian press, specifying that the deadline for the submission of tenders was postponed from June 12 to the end of the same month, to allow more bidders to come forward.
The Indian producer has been lured both by the prospect of paying a very low price for the purchase of the assets and by the possibility of taking possession of production facilities in new developed markets. British Steel owns a plant in Scunthorpe and rolling mills in Skinningrove and Teesside, all in the United Kingdom, as well as plants in Hayange, France, and in Alblasserdam, the Netherlands.
In addition to JSW Steel, the British group Liberty House and the South Korean producer POSCO also have expressed their interest in British Steel.
JSW had already tried to acquire the assets of British Steel from Tata Steel in 2016, but it was the Greybull Capital investment fund that won them for the symbolic amount of $1. Until the first quarter of 2018, British Steel had announced profits, after which its financial results had begun to suffer due to a drastic drop in sales, high iron ore prices and high energy costs. On May 22, the British High Court ordered the liquidation of British Steel.