Sanjeev Gupta

Sanjeev Gupta
Born Sanjeev Kumar Gupta
September 1971 (age 47)
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Residence London, England
Wyelands, near Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales
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(s)
Nicola Gupta (m. 2008)
Children 3
Parent(s) Parduman K Gupta

Sanjeev Kumar Gupta (born September 1971) is an Indian-born British businessman, and the founder of Liberty House Group.[1] He is the executive chairman of Liberty House which has a turnover of nearly $15 billion (2018) and leads the GFG (Gupta Family Group) Alliance which employs c14,000 people worldwide.[2]

Early life

Gupta was born in Ludhiana, Punjab,India,[3] the third of four children of Parduman K Gupta[4] 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.[5] After completing his A-levels he spent his gap year selling bicycles in Turkey for his father[6] before enrolling to study Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] It is there that in February 1992 he founded the Liberty House Group. When the business was generating £1m a day, he switched to economics with management, a move which he claims freed up time to work on the business.[5]

Career

Trading roots

Initially, Liberty House traded steel, rice, sugar, FMCG, engineering and other goods[4] 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.[4] In 2009, it entered steel making, buying plants in Africa. 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.

Industrial expansion

In 2013, Liberty House Group entered the UK through the purchase of Mir Steel UK (previously Aphasteel),[7] 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. In the two and a half years leading up to the re-opening Gupta kept the entire 150 people workforce[8] on half-pay while he tried to get the mothballed site operating again.[7] 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.[9]

In November[10] and December 2015[11] 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.[12]

In April 2016 when Tata Steel UK announced its intention to sell its UK based operations, Gupta launched a daring bid for the business,[13] and launched Liberty House's Greensteel strategy.[14]

In October 2016, Liberty House launched its steel recycling division called Liberty Metals Recycling.[15]

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.[16][17]

In November 2016 Liberty House entered into exclusive negotiations with Tata Steel UK for the acquisition of its speciality steels business[18] 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.[19] The acquisition saved 1,700 jobs across sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth, Bolton and Wednesbury.[20]

In September 2017, Gupta acquired the Arrium steel and mining business in Australia, encompassing primary steelmaking, recycling, distribution and iron ore mining.[21] The new business is conducted under the Liberty OneSteel brand.

He has been dubbed the man who can save[22] the British steel industry[23] through an approach called Greensteel,[14] and has since been working to apply this model of operation to other countries including Australia[24] and the USA.[25]

Awards and recognition

In May 2017, Gupta was awarded CEO of the year at the Platts Global Metals Awards in London.[26]

In October 2017, he was awarded “Business Leader of the Year” at the British Asian Achievers Awards 2017.[27]

Personal life

Gupta's wife Nicola is from Canvey Island, Essex, and was the treasurer of his company.[28] Gupta had kept the relationship secret for seven years before they married in 2008, the family's first cross-cultural marriage.[28][29] Gupta and his wife own Wyelands, a country house estate near Chepstow in Wales. They have three children[28][16][17] and reside in Bellevue Hill, New South Wales.[30]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Doshi, Vidhi (6 April 2016). "Sanjeev Gupta: from college dorm deals to UK steel's great hope". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  2. ↑ "About Us | GFG Alliance". GFG Alliance. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  3. ↑ Ford, Jonathan (8 April 2016). "Sanjeev Gupta – the trader aspiring to be a steel baron". Financial Times. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 Balachandran, Manu. "The tycoon from Punjab who swam against the tide to rescue the British steel industry". Quartz. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  5. 1 2 Doshi, Vidhi (6 April 2016). "Sanjeev Gupta: from college dorm deals to UK steel's great hope". Retrieved 8 December 2017 – via www.theguardian.com.
  6. ↑ Meechan, Brian (12 April 2016). "Who is Sanjeev Gupta?". Retrieved 8 December 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  7. 1 2 Meechan, Brian (2016-04-12). "Tata Steel UK sale: Who is Sanjeev Gupta?". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  8. ↑ Meechan, Brian (2015-10-16). "Liberty steelworks in Newport reopens after two years". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  9. ↑ "Liberty Steel Newport - Liberty House Group". www.libertyhousegroup.com. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  10. ↑ "Liberty saves 350 jobs after Caparo steel empire topples". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  11. ↑ Kelsey, Chris (2015-12-11). "More steel jobs saved as Guptas buy remaining Caparo businesses". walesonline. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  12. ↑ "'Last' Scottish steelworks at Dalzell plant in Motherwell formally reopens". BBC News. 2016-09-28. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  13. ↑ "Sanjeev Gupta's firm Liberty to bid for Tata Steel's Port Talbot unit today". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  14. 1 2 "GREENSTEEL: A brighter future for UK Steel". www.libertyhousegroup.com. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  15. ↑ "Liberty Group targets UK scrap metal market - letsrecycle.com". letsrecycle.com. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  16. 1 2 Washtell, Francesca (16 November 2016). "Liberty House founder to launch new "industry friendly" UK bank". cityam.com. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  17. 1 2 Tovey, Alan (3 December 2016). "Sanjeev Gupta: the man who sees opportunity in UK industry where others don't". Retrieved 22 February 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  18. ↑ Ruddick, Graham (2016-11-28). "Tata to sell UK speciality steels business in £100m deal". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  19. ↑ Monaghan, Angela (2017-05-02). "Tata deal with Liberty House saves 1,700 UK steel jobs". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  20. ↑ Monaghan, Angela (2 May 2017). "Tata deal with Liberty House saves 1,700 UK steel jobs". Retrieved 8 December 2017 – via www.theguardian.com.
  21. ↑ Khama Reid and Annabelle Regan (2017-09-01). "Whyalla steelworks deal signed, with big investment promised". ABC News. Retrieved 2017-10-09.
  22. ↑ qz.com, Manu Balachandran,. "UK's 'Man of Steel': A tycoon from Punjab swam against the tide to rescue British steel industry". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2017-05-30.
  23. ↑ "Is this the man who can save Britain's steel industry?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  24. ↑ "The Australian". The Australian. 20 May 2017.
  25. ↑ "Liberty House to buy ArcelorMittal's U.S. Georgetown steel plant". Reuters. 2017-04-21. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  26. ↑ "Platts 2017 Global Metals Awards--Winners". gma.platts.com. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  27. ↑ "Sanjeev Gupta awarded "Business Leader of the Year" at the British Asian Achievers Awards 2017". www.libertyhousegroup.com. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  28. 1 2 3 Meechan, Brian (12 April 2016). "Who is Sanjeev Gupta?". Retrieved 22 February 2018 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  29. ↑ "Putting the steel back into British industry". independent.co.uk. 1 February 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  30. ↑ "Whyalla: The town that saved itself". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 24 September 2018.
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