Liberty House expects deadline for Tata Steel UK bids by May end

Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty House, had announced his intention to bid for the UK assets

Tata Steel is expected to set a deadline for bids on its UK assets for the end of May after announcing the sale process earlier this week, Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty House said.

Metals trader Liberty House Group had already announced its intention to bid for the assets and Gupta said he expects there will be other bidders although he wasn't aware of any.

Speaking at the FT Commodities Summit, Gupta said, "Our own balance sheet is over $1 billion with no long term leverage because we've largely been a trading house for the last 25 years we've never taken long term leverage. We do have quite a bit of firepower."