European headquarters

Ex-OMV board member brings mega steel group to Vienna

Liberty's European headquarters will be relocated from Bucharest.(Bild: Liberty Steel)

From July, Vienna will become the European headquarters of the globally active British steel group Liberty (30,000 employees, 200 locations). The reason for this is that Thomas Gangl, an Austrian, will become the new European head and "take" the previous company headquarters from Bucharest to Vienna.  

Gangl has been a top manager at OMV for many years and is currently still head of the plastics subsidiary Borealis. "I am very attached to the location. We found this solution in talks with Liberty owner Sanjeev Gupta and will establish a holding company for Europe in Vienna, preferably as early as July 1," smiles the 51-year-old. From Vienna, he will be responsible for 18,000 employees and a turnover of three to four billion euros.

Liberty has four steelworks in the EU (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania), as well as locations in France, Great Britain, etc. Internationally, the company is also represented in India, the USA and Australia, where Liberty also has its own huge iron ore mine. Gangl, a native of Upper Austria, is now tasked not only with integrating the sites that were only acquired in 2019 and reducing the resulting high level of debt, but above all with transforming the company into a "green" steel producer. "We want to be CO₂-neutral by 2030, that's an incredible announcement."

Thomas Gangl: "We want to be CO2-neutral by 2030, an incredible announcement"(Bild: APA/HANS PUNZ)

A good one billion euros will be required as investment, for example in electric melting furnaces instead of conventional coal or gas-fired systems. This requires large amounts of green electricity and hydrogen. Gangl, an engineer by training, has already managed corresponding projects at OMV. Recently there were differences of opinion with OMV boss Alfred Stern, which is why the offer to the steel industry was welcome.