Boss Tata Steel IJmuiden out of the avenue | Financial

The European parent company announced this on Monday. According to a press release from the European Headquarters (TSE), “the withdrawal has come about by mutual agreement.” However, Henrar himself lacks any comment.

TSE aims to announce a successor in the coming weeks. The formal authority for this lies with TSE, the Dutch supervisory board has only an advisory function.

In recent months, a power struggle between the Netherlands and the European headquarters started, mainly with access to the greenhouse in IJmuiden. Besides the former Hoogovens in IJmuiden, Tata Steel Europe also manages what remains of the British steel possessions of the Indians. This is mainly a large blast furnace in Port Talbot, but also some smaller factories.

Thread

The British operation is structurally loss-making. Since the merger with British Steel to Corus in 1999, all attempts to skim off the profits in IJmuiden in favor of the British deficits have run like a thread through the history of IJmuiden.

This has happened again since 2019, because the Indian head office has announced that it no longer wants to invest a cent in Europe. Shortly before that, an attempt to merge Tata Steel Europe with Thyssen Krupp broke down on competition concerns from Brussels.

Sore leg

Henrik Adam, the German CEO of Tata Steel Europe, has since tried to pull out all the stops from his London office to bring money into the drawer, such as selling Dutch parts and cutting the workforce in the Netherlands. That is against the sore leg of the Dutch management, who repeatedly collided with Adam. So Henrar’s resignation is not surprising.

In response, the central works council expresses its confidence in the management (ExCo) of Tata Steel Europe. “This decision will lead to an even tougher confrontation between the Netherlands, India and the United Kingdom,” said chairman Frits van Wieringen.

“The cor calls the resignation at this time in which the company must pull out all the stops to get through the crisis, an incomprehensible and thoughtless decision.”

“Both the shareholder in India and the European leadership of Tata Steel have been failing for years by failing to solve the problems in Britain. Billions of pounds and euros have not been able to make Tata Steel UK profitable in recent years. ”

“Careless”

Today’s decision, “with a global corona crisis and huge problems at Tata Steel UK, indicates that Tata Steel’s leadership is no longer able to make careful decisions,” said Van Wieringen.

“It will be clear that the cor will no longer cooperate with the ExCo’s plans that have only one goal: to keep the loss-making Tata Steel UK up and running for more than 20 years. By definition, the COR does not agree with the disappearance of a thousand jobs in the Netherlands. ”

Bond furious

The FNV union is also furious and fears for job losses because the head office can now push through the plans more easily. “The owners of Tata Steel in India are keen to downsize IJmuiden, but Henrar has repeatedly convinced them of the great importance of the location for Tata Steel and the Netherlands,” said director Roel Berghuis.

Henrar is a child of the company and joined the company 33 years ago, then under the name Hoogovens. He has been chairman of the Dutch branch of Tata Steel since 2008. According to Tata Steel Europe, Henrar will remain on the payroll until the end of the year and will be “associated with the company as an advisor.” He does not want to respond himself.

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