Tata Steel has completed the sale of its long products business to Greybull Capital, in a deal that will preserve 4,400 UK jobs and revive the British Steel name.

Tata started talks with Greybull about the sale in December, three months before the Indian conglomerate decided to sell its entire UK business. Greybull, an investment firm, has paid a nominal £1 for the business, which makes products such as railway tracks and steel used in construction.

The sale includes the steelworks in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and sites in Teesside, Workington and York. The business also employs about 400 people in France.

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Workers accepted a temporary 3% pay cut and changes to terms and conditions in April as part of the deal to salvage the business, which will be renamed British Steel.

The brand of the former state-owned industry disappeared in 1999 with the creation of Corus, which Tata bought in 2007. The new logo was unveiled at the Scunthorpe plant on Wednesday.

Greybull said the long products business had returned to operating profit in the past two months as the result of a turnaround plan that included making higher-value products. The firm, founded in 2008 by the French-born brothers Nathaniel and Marc Meyohas, said it had £400m ready to invest in the business.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest British Steel’s new logo, which was unveiled on Wednesday. Photograph: British Steel/PA

British Steel’s commercial director, Peter Hogg, said jobs at the firm were now secure. “We have no plans to make any job reductions. The future of the business is based on that strong turnaround plan.”

Greybull declined to say whether it had bid for Tata’s other UK steel assets, which employ about 11,000 people and include the blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales.

Marc Meyohas said: “Our entire focus has been on getting this deal to where it is and launching British Steel. Being investors in the steel industry you would expect any active shareholder to look at what is going on in the broader market. Tata’s other assets that may be for sale … we are going to be approached and we are going to be looking at that.”

Bidders submitted proposals to buy the business last week. The UK government has offered to provide loans and guarantees to a buyer and has urged Tata to allow time for a deal to be done. Tata is also considering keeping the business in light of the government’s support package.



Meyohas said Greybull’s dealings with Tata were tough commercial negotiations but that Tata had behaved in a responsible fashion.

Bimlendra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK, said: “As a responsible seller, Tata Steel is delighted to have secured a buyer for this business and we hope that under Greybull Capital ownership, the business will continue the momentum of the improvement programme that has been initiated in the last 12 months.”



Hogg said the long products business would be profitable in the current financial year after withdrawing from plate production, its worst performing business, saving money by closing a coke oven and making about 400 small changes. “It’s been about making the whole business more cost-competitive, more focused and more agile. It’s a big business but it can have a smaller business feel when it’s not part of a larger organisation,” he said.

Hogg said he had lobbied the government to help the steel industry with lower energy prices and business rates, more incentives for research and development and greater use of British steel in infrastructure, from big projects to smaller ones such as a new school or hospital.

Paul McBean, the chairman of the multi-union committee at the Scunthorpe works, said: “Getting to this point has taken months of work and commitment from our workforce and I thank them for their support and dedication to the steel industry. I am delighted we are relaunching our fantastic business as British Steel. It marks a new start, and a new chapter, for our business.”