Financing the future of British steelmaking assets

A number of press reports are commenting on the lack of interest of the UK banking sector in the future financing of British steelmaking assets. For example see http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-tata-steel-britain-banking-idUKKCN0XB2CM which comments that “Britain's biggest steel business is such an unattractive prize that most major investment banks are not even angling for the opportunity to advise potential buyers on one of the year's highest profile deals”.

In my own experience, if the investment decision is attractive, the financing decision usually follows. The reluctance of the UK banking sector to get involved with financing any restructuring of British steelmaking assets is therefore telling me that more work needs to be done on the investment decision itself – i.e. on developing an attractive vision of future UK steelmaking – a vision which is cost-competitive and which will prove viable over the longer term.

I will in the coming days be posting some further thoughts on how this might be achieved at sites such as Port Talbot in South Wales.

Andrzej M Kotas, MBA

Managing Director

Metals Consulting International Limited

Website: www.steelonthenet.com