Tata Steel stresses UK sales process ongoing

Tata Steel today said it is currently evaluating the "binding bids" received from some 200 potential investors for its loss-making UK businesses and that the country's largest steelmaker remains committed to the sales process.
The Indian conglomerate sought to dismiss widespread reports in the British media indicating that the firm may be close to striking a deal with the British government to keep its steelworks in the country rather than sell them off.
"As a responsible seller, Tata Steel is engaged with a range of stakeholders, including the UK government, to give the best chances of future sustainability for the business in the future, whoever the future owner of the business might be," a Tata Steel spokesperson said.

The company stressed that it has consistently stated its commitment to running a "thorough and urgent sale process for its UK business".
"That remains the case today and thesales process, supported by specialist advisors and the governments of the UK and Wales, has involved approaches to around 200 potential investors across the world. In the current phase, the binding bids are under evaluation and some bidders have asked for clarifications which we are in the process of providing," a company statement added.
Earlier, reports in 'The Financial Times' and the 'Guardian' had claimed that Tata Steel is in talks with the British government to clinch a loan worth up to nearly 1 billion pounds and a restructuring of the British Pension Scheme after no potential bidder could guarantee keeping the plants running for more than three years.

"They have never stopped negotiating about staying. If everything works out they will stay," a source close to the company told the 'Guardian'.

UK business secretary Sajid Javid, who is leading UK government efforts to rescue thousands of steel jobs in the country, has previously said the government is willing to offer hundreds of millions of pounds to a buyer of Tata Steel UK and restructure the pension scheme, which has liabilities of almost 15 billion pounds and costs more than 100 million pounds a year to support.
He had also announced that the government would be willing to take up to a 25 per cent stake in the business to help with the sales process.

Indian-origin businessman Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House and London-based investment firm Greybull Capital are among those in the running to acquire the UK units.
'The Financial Times' claimed that the Mumbai- headquartered firm was "under-whelmed" by the bidders for its UK business, especially for the flagship Port Talbot plant in Wales.
"Nobody could give them a guarantee that they would stay for more than two or three years. That is one of the reasons Tata has decided to stay. They don't want to be blamed for selling it short," a source told the newspaper.