NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 COMMENT
Believe it when
you see it
CHRIS BECK, EDITOR chris.beck@markallengroup.com
Call me a cynic, but there’s something fi shy about the proposed
£50 million takeover of British Steel by the Chinese
conglomerate, Jingye. For those who don’t remember, British
Steel was put into administration by its owners, Greybull Capital, earlier
this year, putting as many as 20,000 jobs at risk at the Scunthorpe works
and the wider supply chain.
It’s great that a buyer has been found for the company, especially for
those workers who had been facing an uncertain future, but something
about it sticks in the craw. What is Jingye – only the world’s 37th biggest
steelmaker – doing buying up a loss-making company in the UK; one that
was bought by its previous owners for just £1 three years ago? Add to that
the fact that the decline in UK steelmaking has largely been blamed on
the growth in cheaper industry in China, and things start to look very
confusing indeed.
That’s why I’m not shouting from the rooftops about Jingye’s promise
to invest £1.2 billion in British Steel over the next decade. What incentive
does a Chinese-owned company have to do so, especially when it risks
providing competition to domestic operations?
Furthermore, don’t forget that it’s election season. The government has
allegedly had a lot of say in the Jingye deal (although we don’t yet know to
what extent), and has conveniently timed the announcement of thousands
of ‘saved’ jobs, just as the starting gun is fi red on what could be one of the
most disruptive elections for many years. I’ll believe that British Steel has
been ‘saved’ when I see it...
C.Beck
Editor Chris Beck
chris.beck@markallengroup.com
Art Editor Neil Young
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