Embattled steel producer Tata Steel has saved approximately 4,400 jobs after completing the sale of its long product business to investment firm Greybull Capital for the nominal fee of £1. Negotiations between Tata and the London-based firm began in December 2015, three months before the Indian conglomerate unveiled plans to sell its UK steel business.

The sale includes sites in Scunthorpe, Teesside, Workington and York, Tata said, adding the jobs of the 400 people employed by the business in France are also safe.

More business news

"As a responsible seller, Tata Steel is delighted to have secured a buyer for this business and we hope that under Greybull Capital ownership, the business will continue the momentum of the improvement programme that has been initiated in the last 12 months," said Bimlendra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK.

"Employees and trade unions have worked closely with the long products Europe management team to improve the business's prospects, putting it in a more competitive position than it has been for many years."

In April, Tata Steel employees agreed to a temporary 3% pay cut and changes to terms and conditions in a bid to rescue the struggling business, which will be rebranded British Steel.

"Getting to this point has taken months of work and commitment from our workforce and I thank them for their support and dedication to the steel industry," said Paul McBean, chairman of the multi-union committee at the Scunthorpe site.

"I am delighted we are relaunching our fantastic business as British Steel. It marks a new start and a new chapter, for our business."

Greybull said it was ready to invest as much as £400m (€517.7m, $578m) in the business, which it said had returned to profitability over the last two months. Tata, however, did not provide any details on its attempts to sell its remaining assets in the UK, which employ 11,000 people.