Fresh jobs hope for Caparo staff

Owned by the Gupta family, Liberty has already saved nearly 350 jobs after buying up the Caparo Tubular Solutions arm of the collapsed engineering group at the end of November.

It is understood Liberty is now in talks with PwC, the accountancy firm handling the administration process, over the Caparo Precision Strip business, based at the Trident Steel Works in West Bromwich.

It makes high quality cold-rolled precision steel strip, used for band saws and in industries ranging from car making and construction to forestry, food and medical equipment. More than two thirds of what it makes is exported to customers abroad.

The company is made up of a string of historic Black Country companies, with JB & S Lees - founded in the reign of Queen Victoria - and Firth Cleveland Steel Strip based at the West Bromwich site. Ductile Stourbridge Cold Mills, which can trace its origins back to 1905, has a site in Charles Street, Willenhall.

A PwC spokesman would say only that "talks are ongoing" and could not say whether they are about the whole Precision Strip business or just parts of it.

But hopes are high that a deal could be sealed by the end of this week.

Around 225 people are employed across the steel strip companies. They have been facing an uncertain future since the Caparo Industries parent group went into administration in October, along with its 16 subsidiary companies.

Within days 450 workers lost their jobs after administrators from PwC decided their parts of Caparo had no chance of survival and closed them down.

But nearly 500 jobs have been saved so far with new owners buying up parts of the business.

The biggest deal saw the Gupta family, which runs the Simec and Liberty House groups, buying Caparo Tubular Solutions and saving more than 300 Black Country jobs at sites in Oldbury and Bilston.

Following the takeover Sanjeev Gupta, group managing director of Liberty, said: This is exciting but also sobering.

"We've got lot of challenges ahead of us in this industry and a lot of work to be done but we're excited by the future vision.

"I recognise I have a huge responsibility."

Mr Gupta said Liberty had decided to step in because Caparo Tubular Solutions was 'a profitable business and a successful business' so taking it over given the tragic situation Caparo found itself in was 'compelling'.

Precision Strip workers are now hoping Liberty will take the same view of their business.

The most recent figures, for 2014, show it had turnover of around £31.5m but operating profits had halved to around £400,000 after a slowdown in demand for its strip steel to make bandsaws.

Meanwhile, including the Precision Strip workers, around 700 remaining Caparo workers currently face an uncertain Christmas as PwC continues trying to find buyers for their parts of the business.