City pro Edi Truell says Brexit encouraged him to put together £1 bid for Tata Steel’s UK assets
Leading City financier, Edi Truell, was encouraged to put together a £1 bid to save Tata Steel's UK assets by Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
"Brexit has made the business a lot more attractive to potential buyers… that has certainly enhanced my thinking," he told City A.M. He said Britain would be better able to impose import tariffs, shake off heavily-subsided EU competitors and benefit from the temporarily weaker pound.
Read more: Liberty House still interested in Tata's UK business despite Brexit
He's in talks with Tata Steel, the Treasury and the Pensions Regulator who are "listening very carefully" to the proposal, as was first reported by The Times.
It would see Truell, who used to advise former London mayor and leading Leave campaigner Boris Johnson on pensions, carve off Tata UK's burdensome pension fund. Risk insurance and hedges in the reinsurance market would be used to offset longevity among members and future rates of inflation.
Read more: Trade union blasts Tata Steel for delays over the sale of its Port Talbot operation
Truell believes that this plan, which would retain full benefits for the scheme's members, is a better alternative to proposed legislation to save the British Steel Pension Fund, that he warns would set a dangerous precedent.
The business' operations — including Port Talbot and Llanwern, steelworks in Rotherham and Sheffield and the Corby steel plant — would then be sold to interested buyers in packages or all together.