 "Sanjeev Gupta, Executive Chairman, Liberty House Group. Photo: Gupta's Twitter handle")
Industrial and commodity group Liberty House's bid for Tata Steel UK's speciality steel and pipe businesses is worth nearly 100 million pounds ($130 million), an industry source told Reuters on Wednesday.
Britain's largest steelmaker paused the sale of its major UK assets in July to explore a joint venture with Germany's Thyssenkrupp, but proceeded with separate talks to sell its speciality and pipe businesses.
The businesses employ around 2,000 people directly, but up to 8,000 jobs would be at risk in sectors related to steelmaking if sale talks fail.
Liberty was a bidder for Tata Steel UK's major assets.
An industry source told Reuters after Tata Steel paused the sale that Liberty would proceed with plans to bid for the company's speciality steel and pipe businesses, based in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Hartlepool.
Tata Steel and Liberty declined to comment.
($1 = 0.7695 pounds)
(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; Editing by Veronica Brown and Mark Potter)
