The UK government’s Insolvency Service tells Kallanish that the Official Receiver is continuing to talk with interested parties about the future use of the SSI UK steelmaking site on Teesside, north-east England.

Additional coal has been purchased to keep the Redcar Coke Ovens operational over the weekend of 10/11 October, the government office says in a statement. The Official Receiver continues carrying out his duties as liquidator, including dealing with the assets of the company.

Staff continue to be retained on site to maintain the Redcar Coke Ovens and manage the site in a safe manner. PwC continue to assist and support the Official Receiver as special managers, the Insolvency service says.

The treatment of SSI UK by the UK government compared with the approach to parent company SSI plc by the Thai government, highlights another challenge facing the Redcar slabmaker

Both companies were declared bankrupt within 24 hours of each other. The parent company however will benefit from a legal stay of execution of several weeks, during which time it will be protected from its debtors. It will be able to prepare a business rehabilitation plan. This ultimately may or may not be successful, but the company at least is given another chance.

This is not so however for its UK subsidiary. SSI UK was immediately handed over to the Official Receiver whose task, in short order, is to try and find a buyer or buyers for the business in whole or in part. Employees are immediately made redundant, local supply chains are disrupted and local economies are likewise decimated.

In some good news, the Northern Echo reported on Friday that a small number of ex-SSI UK employees have already found alternative employment with a new energy-from-waste production facility on Teesside. That is the upside. The downside is that this highlights the immediate erosion of the steelmaking skill-base. And the longer the receivership continues, the more this will happen. Of course, if a saviour is not found, it will be “goodnight Vienna” anyway.

These rules do not just apply to steelmakers of course, but Thailand’s government is rational and focussed enough to realise that it is important to cut struggling companies some slack. Especially those which find themselves the victims more of global economic circumstance than operational inadequacy, Kallanish observes.