{"id":46280,"date":"2019-05-22T07:31:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T12:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46280"},"modified":"2019-05-22T07:31:30","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T12:31:30","slug":"uks-second-biggest-steel-company-collapses-into-bankruptcy-as-iron-prices-climb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46280","title":{"rendered":"UK’s Second-Biggest Steel Company Collapses Into Bankruptcy As Iron Prices Climb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UK’s Second-Biggest Steel Company Collapses Into Bankruptcy As Iron Prices Climb<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Talks to secure a government bailout have collapsed, and British Steel, the UK’s second-largest steel producer, has officially started insolvency proceedings, putting some 25,000 jobs – 5,000 workers at its Scunthorpe plant and another 20,000 along the supply chain – at risk, the FT<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British High Court has ordered the compulsory liquidation of British Steel<\/strong>, and appointed an Official Receiver to oversee the liquidation alongside accountancy firm Ernst & Young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Steel\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The bankruptcy, which was hastened by a loss of business that the company has blamed on Brexit uncertainty, as well as a spike in iron prices (ore prices climbed above $100 a tonne on Friday, the first time they’ve closed above that level since May 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greybull, British Steel’s private equity owner, and a consortium of the firm’s lenders managed to assemble a rescue package worth \u00a330,000 ($38,000). <\/strong>The only problem is the funds were contingent on a match from the UK government. But the money fell through at the last minute as ministers judged that it would violate EU rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal’s biggest proponent, Theresa May’s business secretary, Greg Clark, will now need to explain why he approved an earlier \u00a3120 million ($152 million) loan to help British Steel meet an EU environmental bill,<\/strong> but can’t save the company from bankruptcy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the FT explains in a video, the earlier bailout was required because under its previous owners, British Steel had used the EU’s system of carbon-credit trading to raise money by selling excess credits then covering its short position at the beginning of the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year, the EU ruled that since the UK is leaving the bloc, its companies don’t deserve any more credits, leaving the company on the hook for a massive bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK’s Second-Biggest Steel Company Collapses Into Bankruptcy As Iron Prices Climb Talks to secure a government bailout have collapsed, and British Steel, the UK’s second-largest steel producer, has officially started insolvency proceedings, putting some 25,000 jobs – 5,000 workers at its Scunthorpe plant and another 20,000 along the supply chain – at risk, the FT reports. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25922,2080,4318],"class_list":["post-46280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-british-steel","tag-united-kingdom","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46281,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46280\/revisions\/46281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}