IJMUIDEN – Although SSAB’s takeover of Dutch Tata Steel has been cancelled, the split of the Dutch and British branches will continue. “We continue to unbundle, and at the end of this financial year they will continue as two entities,” said Tata Steel Europe spokesperson Ariane Volz.

In November it was announced that the Swedish-Finnish steel company SSAB was interested which belonged to the former Hoogoven, but was not interested in taking over the ailing UK branch. Tata Steel’s parent company in India then decided to start unbundling Dutch and British Tata Steel.

Two weeks ago SSAB withdrew as a prospective buyer of Tata Steel Netherlands and gave the main reason ‘so that the investment that needs to be made does not exceed the benefits to be achieved’. However, Tata Steel decided to go ahead with the separation and hence the company gave an official target date of today.

“Our financial year runs through March 31, and we are targeting the separation to be formalized on that day,” Volz said. “We announced the most important news in November with the announcement of the unbundling plan, for now we hope to complete it by March 31.”

Tata Steel Netherlands and Tata Steel UK will officially be split into two companies, but both will remain part of the Indian parent company. When asked whether the split would result in job losses, the answer was twofold: “There will be reductions in upper management, but no other jobs will be lost,” Volz said.