Chinese industrial conglomerate Jingye has bought British Steel in a deal set to save up to 4,000 jobs and end months of uncertainty over the UK’s second-largest steelmaker, which collapsed in May.
The UK Insolvency Service announced on Monday that Jingye, a steel and iron producer with 23,500 employees, had agreed a contract to acquire British Steel, including its Scunthorpe steelworks in Lincolnshire.
The Chinese group, which gathered British Steel workers together in a pub in north-east England on Sunday night to break the news of its imminent rescue, said on Monday that it planned to invest £1.2bn in the steelmaker over the next decade.