Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House Ltd. plans to publish consolidated accounts and name a board of directors for the first time, The Times of London reported.
The group has an annual turnover of £20 billion and employs 35,000 workers globally, but Liberty House has been criticized for lacking financial transparency and corporate governance structures, raising questions over its viability, and for the uncommon nature and cost of its borrowings.
Among Liberty House's biggest acquisitions was its €740 million deal for ArcelorMittal's European steelmaking assets, sold as part of a divestment package agreed with the European Commission to allay antitrust concerns.
The ArcelorMittal deal was funded by a €2.2 billion working capital facility secured on money owed to the business, according to the report. Liberty House's main backer in the financing was Lex Greensill, who specializes in reverse factoring, or supply chain finance, where the money was borrowed against future cash flows from customers. Such financing generally involves a high interest rate.
In September, Rio Tinto filed an arbitration case against GFG Alliance Ltd. unit Liberty House over US$50 million in unsettled final payments related to the US$500 million sale of the Dunkerque aluminum smelter in France.
Gupta plans to publish the accounts by February 2020, with the aim that it would enable the business to tap mainstream capital markets and lower its borrowing costs.
Gupta said Liberty House's borrowings were in the "low single-digit multiple" of group EBITDA earnings of more than US$1 billion, on which the group paid on average "mid single-digit" interest rates, according to The Times.
