Tata Steel is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, and has its marketing headquarters at the Tata Centre in Kolkata, West Bengal. It has a presence in around 50 countries with manufacturing operations in 26 countries including India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, UAE, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, South Africa, Australia, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, France and Canada.
Since Tata Steel's acquisition of Corus in 2007, Tata Steel's Europe unit faced issues from oversupply in the market, labour unions, inexpensive imports from Chinese steel makers, and pressure from regulators to decarbonize (green taxes), which forced Tata Steel to consolidate its businesses in Europe.
In 2015, Tata Steel was looking to sell its facilities in Port Talbot, Hartlepool, Rotherham, and Stocksbridge, which were put on hold due to Brexit. In April 2016, Tata Steel's Long Products Europe Division located in Scunthorpe, England was sold to Greybull Capital LLP. The unit was renamed as British Steel Limited.
In February 2017, the company decided to sell its specialty division to Liberty House Group.
Read the full text
In September 2017, ThyssenKrupp of Germany and Tata Steel announced plans to combine their European steel-making businesses. The deal will restructure the European assets of ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel as an equal joint venture. The announcement estimated that the company would become Europe's second-largest steelmaker as a result of the merger, and planned for its future headquarters in Amsterdam. However, in 2019, antitrust regulators of EU refused to accept deals citing reduction in competition. In 2019 Tata Steel decided to sell some of its non-core business units in UK.
In June 2020, the company requested £500 million in UK government support. Later in July media houses reported that the company proposed to transfer 50% of its stake in Port Talbot Steelworks to the UK Government, in return for capital injections amounting to £900 million.
On 11 September 2024, Tata Steel UK announced that 2,500 jobs would be lost at the Port Talbot steelworks, despite a £500 million taxpayer-backed deal from the UK Government.
In November 2020, SSAB of Sweden announced its intention to purchase Tata Steel's unit in IJmuiden, Netherlands. However, in 2021, SSAB backed out, citing technical and cost issues involved with the deal.
In October 2021, Tata Steel Europe officially split its businesses into two independent entities, Tata Steel Netherlands and Tata Steel UK.
In April 2022, Tata Steel announced that it would find alternative sources of coal for its steel production plants in the UK and the Netherlands after European nations stopped doing business with Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
Issues in Southeast Asia
In January 2019, citing debt issues and consistent losses, Tata Steel decided to sell a 70 percent stake in its S.E. Asia business (NatSteel and Tata Steel Thailand) to China's state-owned HBIS Group for $327 million. However, the deal eventually fell through, with both companies citing regulatory issues.
Later in 2019, Tata Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Private Equity firm, Synergy Metals and Mining Fund for divestment of 70% shareholding in Tata Steel (Thailand) Public Company Ltd. (excluding NatSteel).
In 2021, Tata Steel decided against divesting the Southeast Asian businesses, citing improvement in financials, including a reduction in total debt and an increase in the cash flow. This was confirmed through its regulatory filing, where Tata Steel reclassified its S.E. Asian assets from 'held for sale' to 'continuing operations'.
In October 2021, Tata Steel announced the sale of its subsidiary, Natsteel Holdings Pte. Ltd to Top Tip Holding Pte, a Singapore-based steel and iron ore trading company. The deal was valued at $172 million (₹1,275 crore) and included two Singapore facilities and one Malaysian facility excluding the wire business in Thailand.
Subsidiaries
Mjunction
Mjunction is a B2B e-commerce joint venture between Tata Steel and SAIL, established in 2001, that operates an online marketplace and e-auction services for industrial procurement, including steel.
rivexa by mjunction - B2B Online Marketplace for Custom Manufacturing Services
Tata Steel Thailand
Tata Steel's subsidiary, Tata Steel (Thailand) Public Company Limited (SET: TSTH), (formerly Millennium Steel Public Company Limited) is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Tata Steel Limited directly holds 67.90% through its investment arm T S Global Holdings Pte. Ltd.
Tata Tinplate
The Tinplate Company of India Limited (TCIL) is a subsidiary of Tata Steel. Founded in 1920, TCIL is India's oldest and current largest tinplate manufacturer. The company is described as having "pioneered the tinplate industry in India". TCIL has a 70% market share in India and exports a fourth of its products outside India.
In January 1920, the Burmah Oil and The Tata Iron & Steel Company (TISCO) jointly incorporated The Tinplate Company of India Limited (TCIL) to cater to the demand for tinplate that arose following World War I. Burmah contributed two-thirds of the startup capital and Tata the remainder. Burmah required tinplate for the cans used to hold the kerosene it produced.
By November 1921, structural steel for the plant and machinery had been imported from the US and UK, and the plant was established at Golmuri, Jamshedpur, near the Tata Steelworks. The design was based on an Indiana rolling plant. In December 1922, the first hot dip tinning plant started operations. By 1924, a total of six mills were in production, and the company was producing almost 40 percent of India's tinplate needs. In 1926, the level of production exceeded the country's imports for the first time. The company's main competition was from tinplate imported from South Wales. In its early years, the company relied to a large extent on European 'covenanted' labor for supervisory and skilled roles, but this lessened over time as the skills of Indian workers developed. Just under 3,000 workers were employed in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
With the outbreak of World War II, TCIL diversified into the manufacturing of untinned black plates used in Jettison tanks for the Royal Air Force. Also, TCIL took over the processing of steel from the sheet mills of Tata Steel to augment production.
TCIL agreed with Wean United Canada to switch to the Electrolytic Tinning Process. In 1973, an Electrolytic Tinning Line was commissioned with a capacity of 90,000 tons per annum to produce tinplate and tin-free steel. In 1996, TCIL established its first Cold Rolling Mill Complex with a capacity of 110,000 tons per annum, as part of a backward integration to reduce dependency on imported uncoated sheet steel coils, known as tin mill black plate (TMBP). In 2005, a printing and lacquering line was introduced as part of a forward integration to reduce supply chain inefficiencies. In 2007, mill capacity was more than doubled to 379,000 tons by the commissioning of a second Tinning Line; a second Cold Rolling Mill facility was added a year later. Production and sales reached 360,000 tons in 2018–19.
In 2012, Tata Steel increased its shareholding in TCIL to 73.44% which currently stands at 74.96%.
Through volumes, TCIL holds 70% market share in India and exports 25% of the production to Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
In August 2021, it announced its expansion plans, with an additional capacity of 300,000 tons per annum.
In September 2022, it was announced that the company would be merged into Tata Steel.
