Tata Steel in talks with SSAB Sweden to sell its Dutch business

It has also started discussions with the supervisory board and board of management of Tata Steel Netherlands and the process will move to the next stage including due diligence and stakeholders' consultations, Tata Steel said in a regulatory filing.

The steel major has also initiated the process to separate Tata Steel Netherlands and Tata Steel UK and will pursue separate strategic paths for the Netherlands and the UK business in the future.

"The company has initiated discussions with SSAB Sweden based on interest received for the potential acquisition of Tata Steel's Netherland business including Ijmuiden steelworks," it said.

It also said that it continues its dialogue with the UK government on potential measures to safeguard the long-term future of Tata Steel UK and added that it is reviewing all options to make the business self-sustaining without the need for any funding support from Tata Steel India in the future.

It added that the company is committed to deploy proceeds of any strategic restructuring towards additional deleveraging of the balance sheet.

On Friday it reported a nearly 60 per cent fall in its consolidated net profit for the July-September period at Rs 1,635 crore. During the same quarter last fiscal, the company had reported a net profit of Rs 4,043 crore.

T.V. Narendran, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Steel, said: "Tata Steel has delivered strong results in India with broad based, market leading volume growth and strong cashflow generation. The resilience of our business model and the commitment of our  teams has enabled us to ramp-up capacity utilization to normal levels and achieve highest ever sales despite the ongoing challenges due to the COVID pandemic."

He added that in Europe, though the overall environment remains challenging and recovery is more gradual, there has been an improvement in volumes and sales mix.

"We will continue to drive performance and work on a strategic resolution to ensure the focus remains on cash flows and self-sufficiency. We are continuing our discussions with the UK Government regarding the future strategy of our UK business," the CEO said.