Indian-origin businessman Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House group said it has submitted its letter of intent to acquire Tata Steel's loss-making UK assets on Tuesday.
The company described this as an "indicative bid for the entire issued share capital of Tata Steel UK," central to which is the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales the UK's largest and employs around 4,000 workers.
"The document, which was sent from Liberty's international headquarters in London, states the company's intention to bid for all of Tata Steel's UK assets, excluding its Long Products division which is in the process of being sold separately and the Scottish Plate Assets that Liberty already acquired from Tata," the company said in a statement.
The bid is based on Liberty's 'Greensteel' business model and would involve a transition from steelmaking in blast furnaces to recycling steel in electric arc furnaces over time, while ensuring the company continues to meet key customers' quality requirements. Steelmaking would be ultimately powered by renewable energy sources, it said.
"Liberty believes the UK steel industry can achieve long-term viability if based on an agile, sustainable, non-cyclical model which integrates liquid steel-making from recycling with downstream production and the manufacture of advanced engineering products."
Besides Port Talbot, Liberty's remaining assets include sites at Newport, where more than 1,300 people are employed, and Rotherham, which employs 1,200.
Tata also has operations at Corby, Shotton and Teesside.
Liberty had recently completed its acquisition of two Scottish plants earlier owned by Tata Steel.
Liberty said that in order to take the bid forward it has appointed an internal project team and a panel of leading external advisers to work on this acquisition, dubbed "Project Greensteel Pluto".
The 12-strong team will be led by Liberty executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta, who will be working closely with Jay Hambro, Group Chief Investment Officer of the GFG Alliance and Chief Executive of the SIMEC Group, and Jon Bolton, Chief Executive of Liberty Steel UK Plates and UK Steel Development.
Bolton, former Director of Tata Steel, is also Chair of the trade body, UK Steel and co-chair with UK Secretary of State Sajid Javid of the UK Steel Council.
The company said: "The internal team includes senior executives with extensive experience in the global and UK steel industry, as well as specialists in the legal, environmental, finance and human resource fields. Five of the team have previously worked at senior level within Tata." PTI AK ZH ABH
Liberty is being supported by a panel of financial advisers led by international investment bankers, Macquarie Capital (Europe) Limited, with the State Bank of India Capital Markets as co-financial advisers.
In addition to specific support offered by Macquarie Bank and a host of other banks and funds, GFG has existing banking relationships with over 30 banks globally.
GFG also has an independent investment division which includes businesses in banking and fund management, specialising in supply chain finance.
The panel of advisers also include global lawyers Clyde & Co; leading worldwide accountants Grant Thornton; and leading financial advisers Deloitte, who will provide guidance on pension issues.
International consultancy, Wardell-Armstrong, will advise on environmental issues, specialist analysts CRU will provide commercial advice and research data while specific support regarding electric arc furnaces will come from Primetals Technologies, a joint venture between Siemens and Mitsubishi.
Professor Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge, has also joined the team of external advisers.
Gupta, a Punjab-born graduate in economics and management from Cambridge University, has said in the past that he hopes to save as many jobs if his firm was to go ahead with a bid.
"If heavy job losses comes out to be the price to pay, we would not be the ones undertaking that exercise. We will undertake this exercise if we can sustain jobs, which we feel is possible at this stage," Gupta had told PTI in early April, when he was dubbed the saviour of the UK's steel industry.
Other potential bidders for Tata Steel UK assets include Albion Steel, a UK start-up business with industry veteran Tony Pedder on the board.
It is believed to be eyeing Tata's specialty steels unit based in Sheffield, northern England. A Tata management team buyout is seen as the other serious contender at this stage.
The Tata Group had acquired its UK steel operations as part of a 6.7 billion pound acquisition from Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2009.
The firm has blamed structural disadvantages in the UK, such as extremely high energy costs, as the reason for the crisis in the steel industry.