British investor Michael Flacks, one of the wealthiest investors in North West England real estate, is considering buying British Steel and combining it with an Italian steelworks to create one of Europe’s largest metals groups
Billionaire investor Michael Flacks was born in Manchester and founded Flacks Group in 1983, a private investment company that acquires troubled assets and invests in them with the goal to make them profitable. The Miami-based Flacks Group is now preparing a bid for the Chinese-owned and UK government-controlled British Steel, according to the Financial Times.
Flacks Group would combine British Steel’s Scunthorpe steelworks and the former Ilva steelworks in southern Italy(which it is also preparing to purchase) to capitalise on European demand for steel from local suppliers, after an influx of lower-priced steel from China drove down prices. China has become the world’s largest producer of steel over the last thirty years, accounting for half of global output in 2024.
British Steel has been on the brink for several years
The original nationalised British Steel was founded in 1967 and after running at a loss for most of the 1970s, was controversially privatised in 1988. Several factories were closed and jobs lost after privatisation in an effort to make the company more competitive. Whilst this did lead to profitable years, the company merged twice in the following twenty years, with a Dutch company in 1999 and then an Indian steel operator in 2007 to become part of Tata Steel Europe.
Private equity group Greybull Capital purchased Tata Steel Europe’s assets in 2016 and relaunched the business as British Steel. The company lasted three years before falling into insolvency, after which Chinese firm Jingye Steel bought the business in 2020.
However, in 2025, the UK government stepped in and passed emergency legislation to take over management of the Scunthorpe steelworks, which employs around 3,500 people, after concerns were raised about Jingye Steel’s plans to shutter the site. Jingye said that the steelworks was losing £700,000 a day and had stopped ordering the raw materials required to keep the furnaces burning.
Flacks is “in it for the long game”
Speaking to the Financial Times, Flacks said: “Somebody has to take control of British Steel. It’s a plant of national importance…I see an amazing opportunity where most people have overlooked this sector. I’m a big, bullish believer.”
Flacks Group intends to make use of €5bn (€4.3bn) of public and bank financing to purchase the Ilva steelworks in Italy in what he called a “roll-up of European steel operations.”
“There’s going to be an infrastructure growth. People are going to be more receptive to working with British Steel because it won’t be in Chinese hands.”
He also expressed his desire to be a long-term owner of the Scunthorpe site: “Every deal I do is complicated,” he said. “We’re not private equity, we’re not a listed company, we don’t have shareholders to answer to. We’re in it for the long game.”
At the time of writing, neither the Department for Business and Trade or British Steel had commented on the reports.
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