The steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta is mounting a last-ditch bid to salvage his British operations after seeing an emergency plea for government support rejected.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Gupta’s Liberty Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) arm is seeking to adjourn a winding-up petition scheduled to be heard in court on Wednesday.

The petition is reported to have been brought by Harsco Metals Group, a supplier of materials and labour to SSUK, and is said to be supported by other trade creditors.

Unless the adjournment is granted, Mr Gupta faces the prospect of seeing SSUK forced into compulsory liquidation.

That would raise questions over the future of roughly 1,450 more steel industry jobs, weeks after the government stepped in to rescue the larger British Steel amid a row with its Chinese owner over the future of its Scunthorpe steelworks.

If Mr Gupta’s operations do enter compulsory liquidation, the Official Receiver would appoint a special manager to run the operations while a buyer is sought.

A Whitehall insider said talks had taken place in recent days involving Mr Gupta’s executives and the Insolvency Service.

Steel industry sources said the government could conceivably be interested in reuniting the Rotherham plant of SSUK with British Steel’s Scunthorpe site because of the industrial synergies between them, although it was unclear whether any such discussions had been held.

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Mr Gupta is said to have explored whether he could persuade the government to step in and support SSUK using the legislation enacted last month to take control of British Steel’s operations.

Whitehall insiders said, however, that Mr Gupta’s overtures had been rebuffed.

He had previously sought government aid during the pandemic but that plea was also rejected by ministers.

The SSUK division operates across sites including at Rotherham in south Yorkshire and Bolton in Lancashire.

It makes highly engineered steel products for use in sectors such as aerospace, automotive and oil and gas.

A restructuring plan due to be launched last week was abandoned at the eleventh hour after failing to secure support from creditors of Greensill, the collapsed supply chain finance provider to which Mr Gupta was closely tied.

Under that plan, creditors, including HM Revenue and Customs, would have been forced to write off a significant chunk of the money they are owed.

The company said last week that it had invested nearly £200m in the last five years into the UK steel industry, but had faced “significant challenges due to soaring energy costs and an over-reliance on cheap imports, negatively impacting the performance of all UK steel companies”.

It adds: The court’s ability to sanction the plan depended on finalisation of an agreement with creditors.

“This has not proved possible in an acceptable timeframe, and so Liberty has decided to withdraw the plan ahead of the sanction hearing on May 15 and will now quickly consider alternative options.”

One source close to Liberty Steel acknowledged that it was running out of time to salvage the business.

They said, however, that an adjournment of Wednesday’s hearing to consider the winding-up petition could yet buy the company sufficient breathing space to stitch together an alternative rescue deal.

A Liberty Steel spokesperson said on Tuesday: “Discussions continue with creditors.

“Liberty understands the concern this will create for Speciality Steel UK colleagues and remains committed to doing all it can to maintain the Speciality Steel UK business.”

The Insolvency Service and the Department for Business and Trade have also been contacted for comment.

The publisher of the Daily Mail has held talks in recent days about taking a minority stake in the Telegraph newspapers as part of a deal to end the two-year impasse over their ownership.

Sky News has learnt that Lord Rothermere, who controls Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), was in detailed negotiations late last week which would have seen him taking a 9.9% stake in the Telegraph titles.

It was unclear on Monday whether the talks were still live or whether they would result in a deal, with one adviser suggesting that the discussions may have faltered.

One insider said that if DMGT did acquire a stake in the Telegraph, the transaction would be used as a platform to explore the sharing of costs across the two companies.

They would, however, remain editorially independent.

Sources said that RedBird and IMI, whose joint venture owns a call option to convert debt secured against the Telegraph into equity, were hoping to announce a deal for the future ownership of the media group this week, potentially on Thursday.

However, the insider suggested that a transaction could yet be struck without any involvement from DMGT.

The progress in the talks to seal new ownership for the right-leaning titles comes days after the government said it would allow foreign state investors to hold stakes of up to 15% in British national newspapers.

That would pave the way for Abu Dhabi royal family-controlled IMI to own 15% of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph – a prospect which has sparked outrage from critics including the former Spectator editor Fraser Nelson.

The decision to set the ownership threshold at 15% follows an intensive lobbying campaign by newspaper industry executives concerned that a permanent outright ban could cut off a vital source of funding to an already-embattled industry.

RedBird Capital, the US-based fund, has already said it is exploring the possibility of taking full control of the Telegraph, while IMI would have – if the status quo had been maintained – been forced to relinquish any involvement in the right-leaning broadsheets.

Other than RedBird, a number of suitors for the Telegraph have expressed interest but struggled to raise the funding for a deal.

The most notable of these has been Dovid Efune, owner of The New York Sun, who has been trying for months to raise the £550m sought by RedBird IMI to recoup its outlay.

On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that Mr Efune has secured backing from Jeremy Hosking, the prominent City investor.

Another potential offer from Todd Boehly, the Chelsea Football Club co-owner, and media tycoon David Montgomery, has failed to materialise.

RedBird IMI paid £600m in 2023 to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.

That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws – which banned any form of foreign state ownership – amid an outcry from parliamentarians.

The Spectator was then sold last year for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Lord Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.

The UAE-based IMI, which is controlled by the UAE’s deputy prime minister and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, extended a further £600m to the Barclays to pay off a loan owed to Lloyds Banking Group, with the balance secured against other family-controlled assets.

Other bidders for the Telegraph had included Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, who offered £350m, while Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding for control of his rival’s titles last summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.

The Telegraph’s ownership had been left in limbo by a decision taken by Lloyds Banking Group, the principal lender to the Barclay family, to force some of the newspapers’ related corporate entities into a form of insolvency proceedings.

DMGT, RedBird and IMI all declined to comment.

Energy bills are set to fall from this July and will continue to drop in the autumn and winter, a forecaster has said.

Households will be charged £129 less for a typical annual bill from July as the energy price cap is due to fall, according to energy consultants Cornwall Insight.

From July, an average dual fuel bill will be £1,720 a year, 7% below the current price cap of £1,849 a year.

The price cap limits the cost per unit of energy and is revised every three months by the energy regulator Ofgem.

The official announcement from Ofgem will be made on Friday.

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Bills had already been made more expensive for three three-month periods, or quarters, in a row, in October, January, and April, as wholesale gas prices rose and European stores of the fossil fuel were depleted due to cold weather.

Electricity prices are tied to gas prices.

The UK is also heavily reliant on gas for home heating and uses a significant amount for electricity generation.

Drops when the cap is next changed in October and January will be “modest”, Cornwall Insight said.

Price falls are not a certainty, however, as weather patterns, gas storage rules, the war in Ukraine, and tariffs could all change pricing.

Bills still high since Ukraine war

Energy costs have remained elevated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and bills are still “well above” the levels seen at the start of the decade, said Cornwall Insight’s principal consultant, Dr Craig Lowrey.

“Prices are falling, but not by enough for the numerous households struggling under the weight of a cost-of-living crisis.

“As such, there remains a risk that energy will remain unaffordable for many,” he said.

“If prices can go down, they can bounce back up, especially with the unsettled global economic and political landscape we are experiencing. This is not the moment for complacency.”

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The government was called on by Mr Lowrey to explore options such as social tariffs, where vulnerable customers could pay less.

Proposals, including zonal pricing, which would see different regions of the country pay different rates, based on local supply and demand levels, are important but must be balanced with the urgent affordability crisis people are facing now, he said.

The continued growth of domestically produced renewable energy is “a positive step forward” and a cause for optimism as it helps protect against global energy price shocks and improves energy security, Mr Lowrey added.

“That progress needs to continue at pace, not just for the net zero transition, but to help build a more stable and secure energy future for all.”