Introduction
Sanjeev Gupta is an Indian-born British businessman and the founder of Liberty House Group. He is the CEO and chairman of GFG Alliance, an international conglomerate that operates primarily in the steel and mining industries. Following the collapse of Greensill Capital in 2021, Sanjeev Gupta has been under scrutiny for his ties to the failed company, which involved opaque financing and sales invoices that Greensill’s administrator has been unable to verify.
Early life
| Name | Sanjeev Gupta |
| Net Worth | $1.2 billion |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Height | 1.71m |
| Age | 51 years |
Sanjeev Gupta was born on September 1971(age 51) in Ludhiana, Punjab, India, the third of four children of Parduman K Gupta, who founded the SIMEC Group. Both his father and grandfather were industrialists and businessmen. At age 13, he was enrolled at St Edmund’s School, Canterbury, the UK as a boarder. After completing his A-levels, he spent his gap year selling bicycles in Turkey for his father before studying economics at Trinity College, Cambridge. It is there that, in February 1992, he founded the Liberty House Group. When the business was generating £1m a day, he switched to economics with management, which he claims freed up time to work on the company.
Career
Initially, Liberty House traded steel, rice, sugar, FMCG, engineering, and other goods as part of the family business. However, it soon diversified into specific commodities and brought together the trading business under three categories—steel, chemicals, and agriculture. In 2009, it entered steel making, buying plants in Africa. A year later, in 2010, it was in Asia, setting up the regional headquarters in Singapore and a hub in Hong Kong in 2012 to focus on China.
Industrial expansion
In 2013, Liberty House Group entered the UK by purchasing Mir Steel UK (previously Aphasteel), a steel mill in Newport, South Wales, stopping it from being shut down. The business was formally re-launched as Liberty Steel Newport in October 2015. In the two and a half years leading up to the re-opening, Gupta kept the entire 150 people workforce on half-pay while trying to get the mothballed site operating again. Liberty Steel Newport produces hot-rolled coil (HRC) for the following industries: construction, automotive, pipes and tubes, structural hollow sections, highway, yellow goods, materials handling, and power.
In November and December 2015, Gupta purchased from administration the UK assets and business of the former Caparo Industries Plc, saving over 1,000 jobs, primarily in the West Midlands.
In March 2016, Liberty House agreed to purchase the last two previously mothballed steel manufacturing sites in Scotland from Tata Steel UK. The deal, which the Scottish Government brokered, was completed on 28 April 2016 when Liberty formally acquired the Clydebridge and Dalzell steel mills. The Dalzell site, which manufactures steel plates, was re-launched on 28 September 2016 by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
In April 2016, when Tata Steel UK announced its intention to sell its UK-based operations, Gupta launched a daring bid for the business and launched Liberty House’s Greensteel strategy.
In October 2016, Liberty House launched its steel recycling division called Liberty Metals Recycling.
In November 2016, Gupta finalized his purchase of Tungsten Bank and renamed it Wyelands Bank, after the country house estate Wyelands he owns near Chepstow.
In November 2016, Liberty House entered exclusive negotiations with Tata Steel UK to acquire its specialty steel business in West Yorkshire and China. In February 2017, Tata Steel UK and Liberty House signed an agreement on the purchase, and the deal was completed in April 2017. The acquisition saved 1,700 jobs across sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth, Bolton, and Wednesbury.
In December 2016, the Gupta-led GFG Alliance completed the acquisition of Britain’s last aluminum smelter at Fort William in Lochaber, along with the hydro-power plants at Kinlochleven and Fort William.
In August 2017, Gupta acquired Arriums Whyalla Steelworks in Australia, encompassing primary steelmaking, recycling, distribution, and iron ore mining. The new business is conducted under the Liberty brand.
In December 2017, Gupta entered the US market by acquiring the Georgetown steelworks and expanded the US presence by acquiring Export Metals in March 2018. At the end of 2018, he purchased Keystone Consolidated Industries.
In December 2018, Gupta acquired Aluminium Dunkerque, the largest aluminum smelter in Europe. This followed the acquisition of AR Industries, a French aluminum wheel manufacturer.
In April 2019, Gupta acquired a second bank which he renamed the Commonwealth Trade Bank. He then doubled the GFG Alliance workforce in July 2019 by acquiring seven steelworks and five service centers across seven countries in continental Europe from Arcelor Mittal.
Consolidation
In October 2019, Gupta consolidated all his global steel businesses to form Liberty Steel Group, which he announced would aim to be the world’s first carbon-neutral company by 2030. He extended that target to his aluminum businesses, which he grouped to form ALVANCE Aluminium Group, which he announced in January 2020.
He has been dubbed the man who can save the British steel industry through an approach called Greensteel and has since been working to apply this model of operation to other countries, including Australia and the USA.
Prince of Wales
The HRH Prince of Wales appointed Gupta as an official HRH Ambassador for Industrial Cadets in March 2018.
Controversies
Following the 2021 collapse of Greensill Capital, Sanjeev Gupta has been under scrutiny for his ties to the failed company. The Financial Times noted in 2019 that Gupta’s companies had been fueled by “opaque financing.”
Wife
Sanjeev Gupta is married to Nicola. She is from Canvey Island, Essex, and was the treasurer of his company. Gupta had kept his relationship with Nicola Crumpton secret for seven years before they married in 2008, the family’s first cross-cultural marriage. Gupta and his wife Wyelands, a country house estate near Chepstow in Wales and residence in Sydney, Australia (Bomera, a 19th-century home in Potts Point). They have three children.
Sanjeev Gupta’s net worth
How much is Sanjeev Gupta worth? Sanjeev Gupta’s net worth in 2022 is estimated at around $1.2 billion. His primary source of income is from his private businesses. However, in April 2021, a Member of Parliament in the UK accused Gupta of running “a potential Ponzi scheme.” Greensill Capital’s bankruptcy administrator could not verify invoices underpinning certain loans to Gupta, with companies listed on the invoices denying that they had ever done business with Gupta.