In the end, Jingye only stumbled over the question of taking over the Hayange factory in Lorraine. Since November 2019, the Chinese steel group has been refining its acquisition of British Steel, a British company with sites in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and that of Moselle. But, faced with Bercy's blockage, he ended up bypassing it. Tuesday March 3, 37e World producer of steel, according to the World Steel Association, has announced the acquisition of British Steel, leaving aside the Hayange facility for the time being.
The purchase, which should in principle be concluded on March 9, thus saves the blast furnaces of Scunthorpe (north-east of England), a steel production plant for the construction sector in Teesside (one hundred kilometers further north) as well as a steel wire factory in the Netherlands. A total of 3,200 out of 3,600 jobs need to be saved. Above all, Jingye announces an investment of 1.2 billion pounds (1.4 billion euros) to deeply modernize these sites.
The company has 18 blast furnaces, 23,500 employees, with a turnover of around 12 billion euros
"It will be the largest investment for our factories since the 1970s"said Paul McBean, a representative from the Community union, who met with Chinese leaders on numerous occasions during the negotiations. Jingye has notably promised to go from two to three blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, to invest in a new cleaner power plant and in an electric arc to produce less polluting steel in Teesside. "The leaders of Jingye really consulted us, listened to our opinion and they have a real industrial vision"says McBean, who has experienced the ups and downs of British Steel for years.
First steps in Europe
The history of this company is that of the slow dying of the steel industry in the United Kingdom. In the 1960s, all steel production was nationalized under the name of British Steel. Two decades later, Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) privatized it. Since then, the various assets have been scattered and have gradually declined. In 2007, the Indian Tata took over a large chunk of it. In 2015, he sold part of it to the Greybull Capital investment fund, which had changed its name to British Steel. In May 2019, the steelmaker finally filed for bankruptcy, unable to find financial balance. Since then, he has been under temporary administration, looking for a buyer.
