Tata refuses to give guarantees over Corus jobs

03 February 2007

Mumbai: Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has said his company could not give any guarantee over safety of jobs at Corus as its immediate plans will be to make the UK operations of the company more profitable.

In an interview to the UK-based Financial Times'' Mumbai correspondent, Tata said his company had so far done only "paper" due diligence on Corus and had yet to examine the Anglo-Dutch steel maker''s plants in detail, acknowledging that the company had paid the top price for Corus.

He said his company wouldn''t look at jobs first. But, at the same time, he refused to give any guarantees on jobs. "I would not even attempt to do so because it would be wrong of me to give those assurances or to deny that that was so," he said. "Our plan would be to try to make the UK operations more profitable," he added.

Tata Steel would apply to Corus the lessons it had learnt from transforming its 100-year-old plant in India into one of steel industry''s lowest-cost and highest-margin producers. Tata''s comments come close on the heels of Britain''s largest steel trade union, Community, demanding a meeting with Tata and assurances from him that he will remain committed to expanding Corus'' operation

Employee shareholders of Corus led by its chief executive are, meanwhile, set to reap riches when the company''s shareholders approve Tata Steel''s £6.7-billion takeover bid on 7 March.

Chief executive Philip Varin would be pocketing £10 million from the combination of shares and options held directly by him, the Guardian said.