Metals tycoon Gupta snaps up more sites

Metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, whose GFG Alliance group owns significant interests in Scotland, has struck a deal to buy three European steel mills in his latest expansion move on the continent.

Landmaark assets - GFG Alliances Sanjeev Gupta. Picture: Iain Ferguson

GFG’s Liberty Steel arm has agreed to buy the Flemalle and Tilleur sites in Belgium and the Dudelange mill in Luxembourg. The deal to buy the trio of sites, which together employ 1,000 people, comes shortly after Liberty agreed to buy plants in the Czech Republic, Italy, Macedonia and Romania.

Referring to the plants in Belgium and Luxembourg, London-based Gupta said they were important economic centres in the regions they operate in.

“These are high quality, landmark assets with skilled and experienced workforces,” he said.

The Belgium and Luxembourg sites are part of a package of site sales that ArcelorMittal agreed with EU competition regulators to clear the way for it to purchase Italian steel giant Ilva, Europe’s largest producer of flat carbon steel.

In the past two years, Gupta’s business empire has invested more than £500 million in Scotland’s metals and renewables sectors. It re-opened the steel plant in Dalzell, Motherwell after it had been closed down by its previous owner. It also bought the UK’s last remaining aluminium smelter, at Fort William, acquired hydro firm Green Highland Renewables and invested in Atlantis Resources, which is behind the MeyGen tidal energy scheme in the Pentland Firth.