Liberty House to submit formal offer for Tata UK assets

Liberty House has confirmed it will put in a formal bid to buy Tata Steel’s UK assets on Tuesday, according to reports.

The commodities trading firm said it would submit a letter of intent to Tata on Tuesday and had put together an internal transaction team and team of external advisers to take the bid forward.

Liberty was the first firm to express an interest after Tata said it was offloading its UK businesses in response to cheap Chinese imports, high domestic energy prices and weak demand. The decisions puts thousands of jobs at risk.

A management buyout team is also planning to submit a bid under the name Excalibur Steel UK Limited, the Guardian reported

It has appointed investment banker Mark Rhydderch-Roberts as a non-executive director.

He joins Stuart Wilkie, the head of Tata’s UK strip steel business, former Alcan senior executive and venture capitalist Roger Maggs, Simon Gibson, chief executive officer of Wesley Clover and company secretary Jon Fernandez Lewis in the board.

The UK government, criticised for its slow response to the crisis, has pledged to support any buyer of the business by buying up to 25% and making hundreds of millions of pounds of finance available.