British Iron and Steel Corporation
The British Iron and Steel Corporation (BISCO) was a British trading company that existed from 1936 to 1967 and traded in iron , steel and scrap .
BISCO was founded in 1936 by the members of the British Steel Export Association or its parent organization, the British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF). The BISF itself was founded in 1934 under state pressure and as a precondition for the introduction of high iron and steel tariffs in order to organize central planning for the iron and steel industry.
The original corporate purpose of BISCO was to promote and manage the export business of its members, but as early as 1937, ensuring the supplies of raw materials to the members became the primary task. For this purpose, BISCO formed the subsidiary British Iron and Steel Corporation (Salvage) Ltd. in 1937. and launched a large-scale campaign to collect iron and steel scrap from British households . In the same year it secured the supply of iron ore from Brazil by contract and on a long-term basis and began to buy pig iron on a large scale from India and the USA .
After the end of the Second World War , BISCO bought large numbers of war and merchant ships that were no longer needed and had them scrapped at contract yards in order to secure raw materials for their members.
The BISF and BISCO survived the 1951 initiated and in 1953 again undone nationalization of the steel industry in the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain , but were then liquidated in 1967, when 90% of the industry was nationalized and the British Steel Corporation summarized were.