CORUS’ largest business on Teesside looks likely to be under new ownership within six months.

Although the region escaped the worst of 2,500 UK job cuts announced by the steel maker yesterday, it said it was in advanced discussions to sell a majority stake in its subsidiary Teesside Cast Products (TCP) at Redcar, east Cleveland.

The proposals to restructure Corus operations in Europe, aimed at improving its competitiveness, will see a potential 47 job losses at Corus Northern Engineering Services on Teesside, with the division no longer taking on external contracts.

A number of Teesside jobs are also expected to be among 100 to go at Corus Long Products support functions in the UK, such as human resources, finance and IT.

Jon Bolton, managing director of TCP, which employs 1,700 of 3,000 Corus workers in the North-East, could not guarantee that new owners would retain all employees, but he stressed the announcement was good news for the plant.

He said: “We came out with the announcement early on because we want to be open with our employees about what is happening.”

Mr Bolton said he was not in a position “at the moment” to disclose who the proposed buyer was, or the value of the deal.

He said: “We have six months to go, it is fairly sensitive information at the moment.

“At the moment, Corus owns all of it and the intention is to sell a majority stake.”

Corus will retain a minority stake in the plant it took over from British Steel in 1999.

Although the Corus name would no longer be on the gates, Mr Bolton said: “Corus still has a number of operations on Teesside at Skinningrove, Hartlepool and even on the TCP site.”

“If you look to the future and look to the long term rather than this communication today it is positive news for TCP and for steel on Teesside.”

In total, Corus announced 3,500 job losses at plants in Europe.

Mr Bolton said: “Even on Teesside the news is mixed.

Although you can say it is a relatively small number, it is still those people’s jobs.

“We will do everything possible to minimise the impact of this on them and help people affected by redundancy to find another job.”

A deal struck by TCP at the end of 2004, saw a consortium of four global steel companies agree to take 74 per cent of slab output from Redcar and Lackenby until 2014.

The consortium is made up of Dongkuk, of South Korea, Duferco, of Switzerland, Mexican company Imsa, and Italian strip products business Marcegaglia.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council leader George Dunning, a former steelworker, said: “While on the face of it, we on Teesside appear not to be hit too hard with job losses, employees of Teesside Cast Products must be wondering who will be taking over their part of the steel process.”

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP, Ashok Kumar, said: “Corus’ statement means there is someone out there ready and willing to take the lion’s share of the operation, something which fills me with confidence for a longterm future for TCP beyond the current period of the existing joint venture with overseas steel processors.”