Tata Steel Europe Ltd. (formerly Corus Group plc) was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
At formation Corus operated steelmaking plants (blast furnaces) in Port Talbot and Llanwern, Wales; Scunthorpe and Teesside, England; and IJmuiden, Netherlands, with additional steelmaking facilities in Rotherham, England (electric arc furnace), as well as downstream steel production of both long and flat steel.
[2] The French steel company Sogerail, specialising in rail manufacture, was acquired in 1999 shortly before the merger of BSC for £83 million.
[5] In March 2006, Corus announced that it had agreed to sell its aluminium rolled products and extrusions businesses to Aleris International, Inc. for €728million (£572 million).
[8] In 2006 the Mannstaedt works (Troisdorf, Germany, special profiles, acquired by BSC in 1990) was sold to Georgsmarienhütte (GMH Holding).
[12][failed verification] On 19 November 2006, the Brazilian steel company Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) launched a counter offer for Corus at a higher valuation of £4.75 per share.
[18][19] In January 2009, Corus announced job cuts of 1,000 in the Netherlands and 2,500 in the UK due to the economic downturn (see Great Recession) and consequent reduction of steel demand.
[25] Engulfed in steam and left disorientated during a night shift, Downey died after wandering into a channel of molten slag heated to 1,500 °C.
[25] On 23 November 2012 Tata Steel Europe announced that, as a result of restructuring proposals, there would be a net loss of 900 jobs in the UK.
[26] By late 2014 Tata Group remained £13 billion in debt, which had increased following the acquisition of Corus in 2007, due to reduced demand in Europe (see Financial crisis of 2007–08 and Great Recession).
As a result, the company sought to reduce liabilities: the European long products division was offered in sale to Klesch Group.
[29] In August 2015 talks on the acquisition ended unsuccessfully, with Klesch citing energy prices and (dumping of) Chinese steel imports as factors against the sale.
[36] In March 2016 The Sunday Post report that a preliminary agreement had been reached between Tata and Liberty House Group on the sale of the Dalzell and Clydesbridge plants.
[37] At the end of March 2016 the Tata board rejected a turnaround plan for the Port Talbot site, and announced it would seek to sell all (or part) of its UK steel business.
[58] In early July 2016 Tata paused the sale procedure in part to assess the effect of the vote to leave the EU (Brexit) in the UK EU membership referendum of 2016;[59] on 8 July it announced it was in discussion with other steelmakers, specifically ThyssenKrupp on the formation of a joint venture between their respective European steel businesses.
[68][69] In November 2020 Tata Steel Limited (the parent company) announced its plan to separate the European operations into two entities, one based in the UK and one in the Netherlands.
[73][75] At the beginning of 2016 Tata Steel Europe had three blast furnaces based steelmaking facilities;[77] the long products division was sold in April 2016 including the Scunthorpe Steelworks.