The purchase of British Steel by China’s Jingye Group has been completed, with both British and Dutch asset transfers agreed. Further negotiations are to come around British Steel’s operations in France, with Reuters reporting that four companies are interested in the purchase of those assets, considered strategically important in France because they supply railway company SNCF. British Steel is the present incarnation of what used to be the long products business of Tata Steel in Europe, and before that Corus, which itself had been formed in 1999 from the merger of British Steel and Koninklijke Hoogovens, the latter of which was home to the IFRF for decades. Jingye has said that it plans to invest £1.2 billion (€1.37 billion/US$1.55 billlion) into the Dutch and British assets, with plans for an electric arc furnace, a more efficient power plant, and a new line for steel rebar.