Kruppstahl and the mysterious Mr Gupta
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“Who is Sanjeev Gupta?” asked the BBC in April 2016 when the Indian-born former commodity trader came from nowhere to launch a daring bid on Tata Steel’s UK operations. By the end of the year, he was “the man who can save the British steel industry". With ferocious speed Gupta had bought and reopened steel mills, aluminum smelters, and scrap metal plants up and down the United Kingdom, saving thousands of jobs in the process.
Four years later Germany is asking the same question as Gupta’s Liberty House is the only bidder for the ailing steel operations of battered industrial icon ThyssenKrupp.
The Ruhr based company has long been the problem-child of German industry. When CEO Martina Merz took over in 2019 she was the third leader in 15 months and instead of making history as the first woman to lead a DAX30 company, her employer made the headlines for falling out of the index, which it had been part of since its inception in 1988.
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