https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/s...days-39w93bswn
Sheffield Forgemasters to be nationalised ‘in days’
Sheffield Forgemasters, a 200-year-old bastion of the British steel industry, could be nationalised within days to ensure security of supply for the construction of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet.
While Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel empire has been in crisis since the collapse of its key lender Greensill Capital, Sheffield Forgemasters too has been going through one of its periodic financial cataclysms.
Commentators have indicated that Forgemasters could or should be combined with the jewel in the Gupta crown, the Stocksbridge steel plant — like Forgemasters, a key provider to Britain’s two most important defence companies, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, responsible for the construction of the UK’s submarine fleet.
Instead it has emerged that ministers are to intervene directly. The Ministry of Defence is close to taking it into public ownership, possibly in days, Sky News has reported……
Talks about a taxpayer takeover have been going on since last year as the government prepared to flex its post-Brexit interventionist muscle. While any nationalisation could be at the behest of Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, it is likely to be managed through UK Government Investments, the Whitehall institution. Ministers could cite national security issues for the intervention.
The MoD confirmed that Forgemasters is a “strategic supplier” but declined to comment further. Forgemasters has said it is a “prime contractor” to the ministry.