Liberty sites sold to Coventry automotive supplier Evtec

About 175 jobs have been saved after two aluminium parts factories were bought by an automotive supplier.

The Liberty Aluminium Technologies (LAT) sites in Coventry and Kidderminster have been sold to Evtec Aluminium after intervention from Jaguar Land Rover.

The factories - part of Sanjeev Gupta's metals empire - were put up for sale as an attempt to refinance his GFG group.

Another LAT site in Witham, Essex will close, resulting in 64 job losses.

The sites were a "critical" part of JLR's supply chain and the company encouraged the sale, said Evtec.

Mr Gupta's empire has been in dire financial straits since the demise of the group's main financial backer Greensill Capital went bust in early March.

GFG Alliance employs 35,000 people at companies stretching from Wales to Australia. Its Liberty Steel arm in the UK has about 3,000 staff.

In a statement, LAT said it had been under "significant commercial pressure" as a result of structural changes to the automotive sector and that after a "strategic review of options" it had decided to sell to Evtec, securing the sites.

David Roberts, Evtec's chairman, said the factories in Coventry and Kidderminster were "essential" as far as Jaguar Land Rover were concerned "so that drove us to look at it very closely when it came up for sale".

He said he had a "strong plan" for investment at the sites around the growing market for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Mr Roberts's sister company Evtec Automotives had previously stepped in to rescue a car parts plant run by Arlington Automotive Group, which went into administration in May, saving the jobs of 182 people.

A period of consultation will now take place at the Witham factory.

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