Tata Steel is looking to find buyers for two of its niche businesses based in the West Midlands, as it looks to focus on its core strip products and markets (www.tatasteeleurope.com).

Firsteel, which coats steel for kitchen bakeware at its Walsall factory, and Wolverhampton-based Engineering Steels Service Centre — a stockholder and processor of engineering steels — are among five businesses deemed surplus to requirements.

Cogent (a steel manufacturer in South Wales, Sweden and Canada), German aluminium business Kalzip and Turkish coil-coating company Tata Steel Istanbul Metals have also been put up for sale. The five businesses employ a total
of 1,100 people.

Hans Fischer, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations, said: “These potential sales follow the successful sale of other non-core businesses in recent years, such as Long Products Europe and Speciality Steels.

"Under new ownership, these former Tata Steel businesses have found the focus to secure a more sustainable future.

“In turn, these divestments have allowed us to focus our resources on making significant improvements to the core strip business, as part of our ambition to develop the most sust-ainable steel business in Europe — focused
on our IJmuiden [Netherlands] and Port Talbot value chains.

“The customer bases for the businesses being sold are distinct from the rest of Tata Steel Europe. We want to find the best owner for each of these business units, who can focus on their needs to help them realise their full potential.”