Hundreds of steel jobs at risk as Liberty fails to sell Coventry press

A mandatory 45-day consultation has begun at Liberty Steel Pressing Solutions after tycoon Sanjeev Gupta abandoned efforts to sell the plant after 11 months.

Today, hundreds of steelworkers’ jobs have been put in jeopardy as bosses hold a redundancy consultation.

The 209 employees at Coventry-based Liberty Pressing Solutions face uncertainty after a failed attempt to sell the plant.

The mill’s steel buyers include Jaguar Land Rover, Honda, Nissan, BMW, excavator maker JCB and tractor manufacturer New Holland.

Announcing the latest update on its restructuring and refinancing strategy, Gupta Family Group Alliance, Liberty’s parent company, said: “Following the announcement in May 2021 that GFG Alliance will divest Liberty Pressing Solutions Coventry ( LPSC), the Group has been actively looking for potential buyers for the business.

Get your daily morning political briefing straight to your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror Politics newsletter

“LPSC has continued to fulfill customer orders during this period, during which operations were financed through equity.

“The long-term structural deterioration of the UK car market meant that a buyer for the LPSC could not be found, and as a result a formal consultation was opened on 7 March.”

Liberty’s website outlines the decades-old history in which LPS and its relationship with the automotive sector were founded.

It says: “Liberty Pressing Solutions has over 70 years of experience manufacturing products for the automotive industry.

“As the successor to the former Willenhall Engine Cooling Company, the business has been operating on the same site since 2006.

“Liberty Pressing Solutions is the core division of the Liberty Vehicle Product Division, which designs and manufactures a wide range of automotive parts.

The GFG consortium has been hit hard by the collapse of Greensill Capital, its main lender, last year.

The union today said a tortuous petition brought by HM Revenue and Customs against the company has been withdrawn.

Tycoon Sanjeep Gupta has agreed to refund tens of millions of pounds in taxes due, Sky News reports.

GFG’s chief transformation officer Jeffrey Kabel said: “We are pleased to announce further progress in our negotiations with creditors including UK’s HMRC.

“We are committed to repaying all of our creditors and this is an important step in helping us restructure and achieve our long-term refinancing goals. Our core international businesses have continued to generate strong profits and achieve record production levels despite the sky-high energy costs experienced by energy-intensive industries across the Kingdom. Britain and Europe have to face.

“We will continue to work on refocusing and refinancing our operations over the long term.”

Unions welcomed the move.

Community country official Alun Davies said: “This is the best route to job protection and this agreement will increase confidence that GFG is committed to Liberty Steel UK.

“GFG must now make good on its promise to refinance Liberty Steel and provide the investments we need to secure a sustainable long-term future.

“The time has come for the Government to step up its support of Liberty Steel and all UK steel producers, by taking urgent action to bring our unacceptable energy prices in line with those of our competitors. in the EU.

“Liberty Steel is a strategically important business and has an important role to play in producing green steel for a low carbon economy.”

“The retraction of these tortuous orders will be a great consolation to our members at Liberty Steel,” said Charlotte Childs, GMB country officer.

“Thousands of jobs will be saved in the short term, but we are far from getting out of the woods.

“It is true that the shareholder investment has been committed to secure the future of work and plant at Liberty Steel.

“GMB will now seek to continue a constructive dialogue with the GFG Alliance to ensure the impact of the financial restructuring and transformation package is felt in the right places.”

The Mirror has been campaigning for Save Our Steel since 2015.