Liberty House Group

Liberty Steel Group Holdings UK Ltd

Founded| 1992; 30 years ago (1992)
Founder| Sanjeev Gupta
Headquarters|

London

England, UK

Key people

| Jon Bolton (Chief Executive)
Products| Steel
Aluminium
Scrap metal
Engineering

Number of employees

| 4,500 (2017)[1]
Website| www.libertysteelgroup.com

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. It is headquartered in London, England,[2] and has offices in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. The holding company of Liberty Steel, Liberty House Group PTE Ltd is based in Singapore.[3][4] The company focuses on ferrous and non-ferrous metal trading, metals recycling, steel and aluminium production, and engineering products and services.[5][6] Gupta controls it through his vehicle GFG Alliance.

## History[edit]

LHG was founded by Sanjeev Gupta in 1992.[citation needed]

LHG, together with the SIMEC Group, part of the GFG Alliance, purchased the Lochaber aluminium smelter plant as well as the Laggan Dam from Rio Tinto Group in November 2016.[7]

In February 2017, LHG agreed to purchase the specialty steel division of Tata Steel Europe for £100 million. The purchase included the division's facilities in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth in South Yorkshire and Wednesbury in the West Midlands.[8]

In July 2017, LHG purchased South Australian steelmaker Arrium[9] which was rebadged "LibertyOneSteel" for the first year of ownership and is now Liberty Steel.[10]

In October 2019, GFG Alliance promised to merge its steel assets into one group called "Liberty Steel Group" by year end.[11]

In 2020, LHG received European Union approval to purchase the Duffel, Belgium plant of aluminium smelter operator Aleris Inc which cleared the way for the purchase of Aleris by Novelis Inc.[12]

On 19 February 2021 ThyssenKrupp (TK) ended discussions with Liberty Steel, which had proposed to take over the former's steel unit.[13] The TK plant at Duisburg Germany is 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.[13]

On 31 March 2021 Credit Suisse filed insolvency proceedings "against Liberty Commodities Limited" (a LHG subsidiary) " at 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 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.[14]

On 2 April 2021, Gupta "claimed that none of its plants will shut 'under my watch' as he raced to refinance his business after the collapse of financial backer Greensill." Liberty Steel had some 3,000 employees, while GFG Alliance had another 2,000 "in other UK metals and engineering businesses".[15]

On 23 April 2021, it came to light that Kwasi Kwarteng of the Johnson government was the minister responsible, as Gupta had sent him a "second letter", subsequent to his first on 24 March. The ADS Group business lobby had told Kwarteng that Liberty was a "strategic supplier and that its specialist products would be difficult and slow to replace." The first letter proposed a "tolling" arrangement which was worth "£170m to plug operating losses and stay open". In tolling contracts a party "agrees to supply raw material to be put through (the) industrial processes" of the other party.[16]

## References[edit]

1. ^ Monaghan, Angela (2 May 2017). "Tata deal with Liberty House saves 1,700 UK steel jobs". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
2. ^ "Company Overview of Liberty House Ltd". Bloomberg. Bloomberg. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
3. ^ "Privacy Policy".
4. ^ https://libertysteelgroup.com/app/uploads/2020/04/15-04-2020_en.pdf[bare URL PDF]
5. ^ "Liberty House - A global industrial and metals group". www.libertyhousegroup.com. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
6. ^ "Our Locations". LIBERTY Steel Group. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
7. ^ Tovey, Alan (23 November 2016). "Rio Tinto to sell Scottish aluminium smelter to Liberty for £330m". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
8. ^ "Tata sells speciality steel to Liberty House for £100m". Financial Times. 9 February 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
9. ^ Whyalla steelmaker Arrium to be sold to British company Liberty House ABC News 5 July 2017
10. ^ Paul, Chrystan (21 March 2018). "Why Sanjeev Gupta May Just Be The World's Most Ambitious Industrialist". Forbes.
11. ^ Bone, Carrie (30 October 2019). "Liberty Steel assets to merge into single global group, to adopt neutral carbon business strategy". Euromoney Global Limited. Fastmarkets MB is part of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC group.
12. ^ "Novelis closes on Aleris purchase". Argus Media. 14 April 2020.
13. ^ a b Rivituso, Christopher (19 February 2021). "ThyssenKrupp ends talks with Liberty Steel over potential steel unit takeover". MetalMiner.
14. ^ Makortoff, Kalyeena (31 March 2021). "Credit Suisse aims at wind-up orders for Gupta's Liberty arm". Guardian News & Media Limited.
15. ^ "Liberty Steel boss: Plants won't shut on my watch". BBC News. 2 April 2021.
16. ^ Tovey, Alan (23 April 2021). "Gupta pleads for taxpayer scrap metal deal to save steel empire". Telegraph Media Group Limited.

## External links[edit]

* Official website