This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Sanjeev Gupta | |
---|---|
Born | Sanjeev Gupta September 1971 (age 53) Ludhiana, Punjab, India |
Nationality | British |
Education | St Edmund's School |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Occupation | Businessman |
Known for | Founder of Liberty House Group |
Title | Chairman, Liberty House |
Spouse | Nicola Crumpton (m. 2008) |
Children | 3 |
Sanjeev Gupta (born September 1971) is an Indian-born British businessman, and the founder of Liberty House Group. [1] He is the CEO and chairman of GFG Alliance, an international conglomerate that operates primarily in the steel and mining industries. [2] Following the collapse of Greensill Capital in 2021, Sanjeev Gupta has been under scrutiny for his ties to the failed company, which involved opaque financing and sales invoices that Greensill's administrator has been unable to verify. [3]
Gupta was born in Ludhiana, Punjab, India, [4] the third of four children of Parduman K Gupta [5] who founded the SIMEC Group. Both his father and grandfather were industrialists and businessmen. At age 13 he was enrolled at St Edmund's School, Canterbury, UK as a boarder. [6] After completing his A-levels he spent his gap year selling bicycles in Turkey for his father [7] before enrolling to study Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge. [1] It is there that in February 1992 he founded the Liberty House Group.
He was thrown out of residential halls at Trinity for registering a private business there, which breached the college’s charitable status. [6] [8] That repeatedly got him into trouble with the college dean. While his business was generating £1m a day, he switched to study economics and business management instead, a move which he claims freed up time to work on the business. [6]
Initially, Liberty House traded steel, rice, sugar, fast-moving consumer goods, engineering and other goods [5] as a part of the family business but it soon diversified into specific commodities and brought together the trading business under three categories—steel, chemicals, and agriculture. [5] In 2009, it entered steel making, buying plants in Africa. [9] A year later in 2010, it was in Asia, setting up the regional headquarters in Singapore and a hub in Hong Kong in 2012 to focus on China.[ citation needed ]
In 2013, Liberty House Group entered the UK through the purchase of Mir Steel UK (previously Aphasteel), [10] a steel mill in Newport, South Wales, stopping it from being shut down. The business was formally re-launched as Liberty Steel Newport in October 2015. [11] In the two and a half years leading up to the re-opening Gupta kept the entire 150 people workforce [12] on half-pay while he tried to get the mothballed site operating again. [10] Liberty Steel Newport produces hot rolled coil (HRC) for the following industries: construction, automotive, pipes and tubes, structural hollow sections, highway, yellow goods, materials-handling and power. [13]
In November [14] and December 2015 [15] Gupta purchased from administration the UK assets and business of the former Caparo Industries Plc, saving over 1,000 jobs primarily in the West Midlands.
In March 2016 Liberty House reached an agreement for the purchase of the last two previously mothballed steel manufacturing sites in Scotland from Tata Steel UK. The deal, which was brokered by the Scottish Government, was completed on 28 April 2016 when Liberty formally acquired the Clydebridge and Dalzell steel mills. The Dalzell site which manufactures steel plate was re-launched on 28 September 2016 by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. [16]
In April 2016 when Tata Steel UK announced its intention to sell its UK based operations, Gupta launched a daring bid for the business, [17] and launched Liberty House's Greensteel strategy. [18]
In October 2016, Liberty House launched its steel recycling division called Liberty Metals Recycling. [19]
In November 2016, Gupta finalised his purchase of Tungsten Bank, and renamed it Wyelands Bank, after the country house estate Wyelands he owns near Chepstow. [20] [21]
In November 2016 Liberty House entered into exclusive negotiations with Tata Steel UK for the acquisition of its speciality steels business [22] based in West Yorkshire and China. In February 2017 Tata Steel UK and Liberty House signed an agreement on the purchase, and the deal was completed in April 2017. [23] The acquisition saved 1,700 jobs across sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth, Bolton and Wednesbury. [24]
In December 2016, the Gupta-led GFG Alliance completed the acquisition of Britain's last aluminium smelter at Fort William in Lochaber, along with the hydro-power plants at Kinlochleven and Fort William. [25]
In August 2017, [26] Gupta acquired Arriums Whyalla Steelworks in Australia, encompassing primary steelmaking, recycling, distribution and iron ore mining. [27] The new business is conducted under the Liberty brand.
In December 2017, Gupta entered the US market by acquiring the Georgetown steelworks [28] and expanded the US presence by acquiring Export Metals in March 2018. [29] At the end of 2018, he purchased Keystone Consolidated Industries. [30]
During December 2018, Gupta acquired Aluminium Dunkerque, [31] the largest aluminium smelter in Europe. This followed the acquisition of AR Industries, [32] a French aluminium wheel manufacturer.
In April 2019, Gupta acquired a second bank which he renamed the Commonwealth Trade Bank. [33] He then doubled the GFG Alliance workforce in July 2019, by acquiring seven steelworks and five service centres across seven countries in continental Europe from ArcelorMittal. [34]
In October 2019, Gupta consolidated all his global steel businesses to form Liberty Steel Group, which he announced would aim to be the world's first carbon neutral company by 2030. [35] He extended that target to his aluminium businesses, which he grouped together to form ALVANCE Aluminium Group, which he announced in January 2020. [36]
He has been dubbed the man who can save [37] the British steel industry [38] through an approach called Greensteel, [18] and has since been working to apply this model of operation to other countries including Australia [39] and the USA. [40]
Having founded Liberty Steel Central Europe Holdings Pte. Ltd. in Singapore on December 22, 2022 he successfully bid [41] €55M on Dunaferr Steel Mill, Hungary's largest steel mill and became the new owner, adding Dunaferr to his portfolio.
In October 2024, it was reported that Sanjeev Gupta was being prosecuted by Companies House for failing to file accounts for 76 companies listed in Britain, including Liberty Commodities. [42] Gupta has pleaded not guilty. [43]
The HRH Prince of Wales appointed Gupta as an official HRH Ambassador for Industrial Cadets in March 2018. [44]
Following the 2021 collapse of Greensill Capital, Sanjeev Gupta has been under scrutiny for his ties to the failed company. [45] The Financial Times noted in 2019 that Gupta's companies have been fueled by "opaque financing". [46]
In April 2021, a Member of Parliament in the UK accused Gupta of running "a potential Ponzi scheme". [47] Greensill Capital's bankruptcy administrator was unable to verify invoices underpinning certain loans to Gupta, with companies listed on the invoices denying that they had ever done business with Gupta. [48]
The collapse revealed that Greensill had lent £400m to companies owned or linked to Gupta, using the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme (CLBILS), which benefited from an 80% government guarantee. [49]
In May 2022, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced they were launching a criminal investigation into the Gupta Family Group Alliance (GFG) into suspected fraud linked to the collapse of Greensill Capital. [50] This is ongoing. [51]
In April 2024, Grant Thornton, the administrators for Greensill, published a report where they revealed that they were still owed round $587.2m (£472m) from Gupta’s GFG Alliance. [52]
Gupta's wife Nicola Crumpton is from Canvey Island, Essex, and was the treasurer of his company. [53] Gupta had kept his relationship with Crumpton secret for seven years before they married in 2008, the family's first cross-cultural marriage. [53] [54]
Gupta and Crumpton bought a £42 million ($60 million) townhouse in Belgravia, London during 2021, [55] own Wyelands, a country house estate near Chepstow in Wales and have a residence in Sydney, Australia (Bomera, a 19th-century home in Potts Point). [56] They have three children. [53] [20] [21]
Stocksbridge is a town and civil parish, in the City of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England. The town is approximately 9 miles (14 km) from Barnsley and 10 miles (16 km) from Sheffield.
Tata Steel Limited is an Indian multinational steel-making company, based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of the Tata Group.
Tata Steel Europe Ltd. was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company was created in 2007, when Tata Group took over the British-Dutch Corus Group.
Port Talbot Steelworks is a steel mill in Port Talbot, Wales. Over 4,000 people worked at the plant until the last blast furnace closed in October 2024. Around 2,000 employees remain after this time, processing imported steel slabs to produce rolled steel products. The mill is in the process of building a 320-ton capacity electric arc furnace which would be operational in late 2027.
ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourg-based multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second largest steel producer in the world, with an annual crude steel production of 78 million metric tonnes as of 2022. It is ranked 197th in the 2022 Fortune Global 500 ranking of the world's largest corporations. It employs around 154,000 people and its market capital is $20 billion. The total value of company assets is estimated to be around $94 billion.
Arrium was an Australian mining and materials company, employing nearly 10,000 workers, that went into voluntary administration in 2016 with debts of more than $2 billion. In 2017 it was acquired by British-owned Liberty House Group.
Jay Hambro is a British businessman in the mining, energy, steel and commodity sectors. He is the founder of Verdigris Strategic, a long-term investor and business transformation specialist.
The Whyalla Steelworks is a fully integrated steelworks and the only manufacturer of rail in Australia. Iron ore is mined in the Middleback Range to feed the steelworks, resulting in the distribution of finished steel products of over 90 different grades. It occupies a 1,000 ha site on the shore of False Bay, Spencer Gulf and is the largest employer in Whyalla, South Australia.
The Galați steel works, formally Liberty Galați, is a steel mill in Galați, Romania, the country's largest.
The Materials Processing Institute is a research centre serving organisations that work in advanced materials, low-carbon energy and the circular economy. The Institute is based in Tees Valley in the northeast of England.
Caparo plc is a British company involved mainly in the steel industry, primarily in the design, manufacturing and marketing of steel and niche engineering products.
Liberty Steel Group Holdings UK Ltd (LSG), which is also referred to as Liberty House or Liberty House UK, is a British industrial and metals company founded in the United Kingdom in 1992 by industrialist Sanjeev Gupta. It is headquartered in London, England, and has offices in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong.
British Steel Limited is a long steel products business founded in 2016 with assets acquired from Tata Steel Europe by Greybull Capital, then acquired by Jingye Group in 2020. The primary steel production site is Scunthorpe Steelworks, with rolling facilities at Skinningrove Steelworks, Teesside.
The Clydebridge Steelworks, also known as Clydebridge Works, is a steel works in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
SIMEC Group Ltd is a British international energy and natural resources business focused on resources, sustainable power, infrastructure, and commodities trading. In 2016 it had an annual turnover of almost USD2.5 billion and net assets of USD350 million. It is part of the Gupta Family Group ("GFG") Alliance, owned by members of the Gupta family, which had a combined turnover of more than USD13 billion and combined net assets of more than USD2.3 billion. Its activities span renewable energy generation, mining, shipping, and commodities trading.
Gupta Family Group Alliance is an international group of businesses associated with businessman Sanjeev Gupta and the British Gupta family. Collectively, companies in the alliance are involved in mining, industry and trading.
Numurkah Solar Farm is a solar photovoltaic power station owned by Neoen near the town of Numurkah in the Australian state of Victoria.
Greensill Capital was a financial services company based in the United Kingdom and Australia. Its main business was the provision of supply chain financing and related services. The company was founded in 2011 by Lex Greensill. It filed for insolvency protection on 8 March 2021.
Alexander David "Lex" Greensill is an Australian former businessman best known for being the founder of Greensill Capital, a company focused on supply chain finance and derivative financial products that on 8 March 2021 filed for insolvency protection and faced legal scrutiny.
{{cite web}}
: |author=
has generic name (help)