Although Jaguar Land Rover is looking for a buyer for the Sanjeev Gupta-owned site, the Essex plant will still be closed

First published on Thursday, November 18, 2021 at 12.52 EST

After Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) stepped in to secure an important part of its supply chain, Sanjeev Gupta's GFG alliance sold two aluminum parts factories.

Coventry-based automotive supplier Evtec will take over Liberty Aluminium Technologies foundries in Coventry and Kidderminster in the West Midlands, saving 170 jobs. However, GFG is closing a site in Withham, Essex, and has lost 64 jobs as a result.

Since the collapse of its main lender, Greensill Capital in March, GFG has undergone several months of restructuring. The collapse prompted Gupta to rush to find new lenders to finance its business, while also considering asset sales and handling potential criminal investigations in the UK and France. It is understood that Evtec paid more than 10 million pounds for these two sites.

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK's largest car manufacturer, intervened and asked Evtec to take over these sites because of concerns about whether Liberty's plight would threaten the supply of key components. The Midlands plant mainly produces lightweight aluminum parts for automotive power systems.

However, the Essex plant was in trouble after losing business with Ford, which produced engines in Dagenham.

As a global shortage of computer chips has caused automakers to slow down the production of their models, British auto suppliers are struggling to cope with the problem of declining sales. At the same time, many smaller suppliers are also facing the prospect of major investment or bankruptcy if they do not switch from manufacturing internal combustion engine parts to electric vehicles.

Evtec, which is pushing the manufacturing of electric vehicle parts, rescued another troubled supplier of Jaguar Land Rover, Arlington Automotive, earlier this year.

David Roberts, the owner of Evtec, said: "I'm glad we managed to save some high-quality jobs. Someone must invest in the automotive supply chain, otherwise we will have no supply chain."

A spokesperson for the GFG Alliance said: “Due to the structural changes in the automotive industry, this has created very challenging conditions for customers, especially [automakers]. In recent years, Liberty Aluminium Technologies (LAT) has been under tremendous commercial pressure. ."

The spokesperson added that the company had to "regretfully announce" that the Essex plant would be closed, and thanked the workers for their dedication "in a period of uncertainty."