The metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has drafted in City advisers to refinance his assets in eastern Europe as he seeks ways of keeping his wider empire afloat.

Sky News understands that Mr Gupta’s GFG Alliance has appointed FTI Consulting to help negotiate new borrowing facilities for the business, which includes steelmaking plants in the Czech Republic and Romania.

The sites were bought from ArcelorMittal, the global steel giant, in 2019.

Sources said a range of options to refinance the eastern European assets were under consideration.

The discussions do not include GFG’s UK operations, which employ thousands of people and which continue to be the subject of separate talks about future financing.

GFG, which owns the Liberty Steel group, was left scrambling for survival following the collapse of Greensill Capital, its biggest lender.

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Mr Gupta underlined the perilous state of his group’s finances in the spring when he requested UK government support in the form of a £170m emergency loan.

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Liberty Steel is the UK’s third-biggest steel producer.

Ministers rejected the plea on the basis that they could not be sure that the funds would not be used to prop up other parts of Mr Gupta’s international empire, which includes a large subsidiary in Australia.

GFG declined to comment.

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