The company planned to restructure its weak European operations, which have posted substantially low operating margins by signing an agreement with ThyssenKrupp AG but in May, the European Commission rejected the company’s plan to merge its loss-making European operations with the German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp.
Earlier Tata Steel Europe had already closed operations at its subsidiary Orb Electrical Steels in Newport, South Wales and at the Wolverhampton Engineering Steels Service Centre in the UK. It has also signed an agreement to sell Cogent Power Incorporation which is a part of Cogent Electrical Steels, one of its five non-core business units, which manufactures cores for electrical distribution transformers, to Japanese steel giant JFE Shoji Trade Corporation. But Tata Steel has decided to retain Surahammars Bruks AB, which manufacturees advanced steels for electric vehicles.
The Wolverhampton service center and sales office in Bolton will also be shut due to a lack of buyers for the assets. Last May, Tata Steel had put five non-core European businesses on the block. It had sold two units – Kalzip, an aluminum roofing, and cladding business, and Firsteel, a coated steel bakeware manufacturer.
