Swedish steel group SSAB has expressed ‘serious interest’ in taking over the Dutch activities of Tata Steel, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported at the weekend.

Talks are already said to be a preliminary stage, the paper said.

SSAB was initially interested in taking over Thyssen-Krupp’s steel business, but mid October, British Indian businessman Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Group made a bid for the loss-making activities.

SSAB is only interested in Tata Steel in IJmuiden, not the loss making British arm, the paper said. Tata, Liberty and SSAB have not commented on the claims.

In April Tata Steel said it was delaying a planned reorganisation of its European arm until July at least, because of the coronavirus crisis. The company had wanted to cut 3,000 jobs and slash costs in an effort to restore profitability. Almost 1,000 of the 11,000 jobs in IJmuiden would have been scrapped.

In June, however, the company confirmed there will be no compulsory redundancies in IJmuiden when the company reorganises and the current pact on jobs – which runs until October 2021 – will be respected.