El Gov has passed legislation to bring British Steel into public ownership.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd4kvxpd3do
Quote:
China has hit out at the nationalisation of British Steel, saying it "firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with the British government's decision".
On Thursday, the UK government said that taking the loss-making firm into public hands would protect jobs and safeguard a "vital national capability".
The UK took control of British Steel's operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it was still owned by China's Jingye Group, limiting the government's ability to steer its future.
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I saw some admiring comments on the socials yesterday for the ‘brutal’ way in which this has been done - the legislation didn’t expropriate the company itself, it expropriated all the assets and transferred them into a new company which was then re-named ‘British Steel’, effectively bringing the entire operation and all its assets into state ownership while leaving the shareholders of the Chinese former owner, Jingye, with the liabilities.
The Chinese government is of course fizzing, and Jingye is, bizarrely, demanding compensation, despite the fact that it previously claimed the Scunthorpe steelworks was losing £700k a day, which presumably means the UK government has just saved them a fortune.