Liberty Steel's South Yorkshire works 'lost £340m in four years'

Liberty Steel's operations in South Yorkshire lost £340m in four years, according to figures that shine a light on the difficulties facing a business on the brink of liquidation that employs 1,450 people.

- Jasper Jolly

The company, owned by the metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta, is desperately searching for investors or lenders before a 16 July deadline, after the high court granted it extra time last week.

Its South Yorkshire subsidiary includes an electric arc furnace at Rotherham, plus steelworks in Stocksbridge and Brinsworth. Court documents suggest that previous efforts in 2022 to sell the latter two sites to an unnamed venture capital fund or a "Chinese conglomerate" came to nothing.

The Guardian revealed last week that the Rotherham plant and a similar operation in Motherwell have not produced steel for about nine months because of a lack of funds to buy vital materials, with staff on furlough on 85% of their salaries.