The Excalibur Steel consortium hoping to secure a management buyout of Tata’s UK steel assets has confirmed it plans to bid for the business, while Albion Steel, a start-up led by industry veteran Tony Pedder has said in intends to bid for the Tata's speciality steel unit.
Excalibur is led by Stuart Wilkie, the boss of Tata’s strip steel operations in Britain, who has taken a leave of absence from the business to run the bid.
Members of the consortium – which is backed by Welsh billionaire Sir Terry Matthews – confirmed this afternoon they have registered a "letter of intent" with Tata expressing their formal interest in taking on its UK steel assets.
Mr Wilkie said: "This project has made enormous advances in a very short period. It was only two weeks ago we made the decision to pursue a buy-out that enables the management and staff to take a stake in the ownership and operation of a strategic British industry.
"We believe we have a large number of the pieces in place required to make this a success, including a management team with vast experience of steel making and processing. We are confident we can turn the business around and sustain profitable steel-making in the United Kingdom, including both the down-stream and up-stream operations."
Tata is understood to have set of deadline of Tuesday evening for potential buyers to formally express interest in bidding for either all or parts of its loss-making UK steel operations, which employ 11,000 people.
Excalibur – based out of Sir Terry’s Celtic Manor hotel complex in Newport - is understood to be considering a variety of proposals though the most likely scenario is that vehicle will buy the giant Port Talbot integrated steelworks and related businesses.
A spokesman for Excalibur said: “We are looking at the UK operation but there are some parts of Tata’s business which have stronger synergies than others.”
Sources close to the sales process say that this signals that Excalibur is not interested Tata’s Yorkshire-based specialty steels business, which supplies the aerospace and energy industries and employs about 2,000 staff.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk