British Steel CEO Ron Deelen to resign at end of March

British Steel is poised to announce the resignation of its chief executive just over a year after the company was rescued from bankruptcy by a Chinese investor.

Ron Deelen will step down from the helm of the UK’s second-largest steelmaker at the end of the month to pursue new plans, according to people aware of the matter.

The Dutchman became acting CEO of British Steel when it entered liquidation in 2019, with the appointment made permanent following its takeover by the industrial conglomerate Jingye Group.

Under Deelen’s tenure, the metals manufacturer, which employs more than 3,000 people, has focused on a turnround plan and returning to profit.

Jingye promised to invest £1.2bn over a decade into upgrading facilities at British Steel, which is based at the large Scunthorpe plant in Lincolnshire and operates smaller sister sites on Teesside and in the Netherlands.

British Steel confirmed Deelen would be stepping down from his role at the end of March, but said he would continue to work closely with the business. Xijun Cao, currently British Steel president, would also assume the role of chief executive from April, the company said.

The departure comes at a difficult moment for Britain’s long-struggling steel industry, with the future of the country’s third-largest producer in doubt. 

Liberty Steel, the third-largest producer, has furloughed hundreds of workers at some of its mills under the government’s Covid-19 scheme and is seeking new sources of funding after its main lender, Greensill Capital, filed for insolvency last week. Production at its two speciality steel sites in South Yorkshire has temporarily stopped.

Liberty’s owner, the businessman Sanjeev Gupta, has told business units in his group to conserve cash and “reduce their call on group resources” as he tries to reach an agreement over debt owed to Greensill. Talks to secure long-term financing are continuing, Gupta told staff in an email last week. 

British Steel faced ruin two years ago when its former owner, the investment firm Greybull Capital, had a request for a state bailout rejected. Only weeks before, ministers had provided it with an emergency loan of £120m to cover an EU bill for carbon emissions.

However, the business was kept running with tens of millions of pounds in public funds for nine months under the supervision of the official receiver, a court-appointed civil servant, until a buyer was found.

The owner of the UK’s largest steelworks in the South Wales town of Port Talbot, India’s Tata Steel, last year held unsuccessful talks with the government over a potential injection of hundreds of millions of pounds as it was hammered by the coronavirus crisis.