Liberty House Group, which wants to buy the British assets of Tata Steel, has its eye on other steel plants in the US, Africa and India if the Tata deal doesn't happen, executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta said - including coking coal assets in Australia. 
Liberty and other companies belonging to the Gupta Family Group are looking for acquisitions and the group plans to list some assets to expose itself to the rigorous governance demanded of public companies, said Mr Gupta, who is co-owner of the group. "We are discussing various alternatives but something within the group will be listed within the next 12-18 months.
"It's ambitious but that's what we're going to try to do," he said.
He did not say where the group planned to list.
Gupta group companies are particularly interested in turnaround assets.
"Whatever we have bought so far has been cheap and we've managed to turn them around," Mr Gupta said.
"Every single one of our peers is out there trying to deleverage, dumping high-quality assets into a market that doesn't want to buy them," chief investment officer Jay Hambro said.
Liberty is one of a number of companies that have put forward offers to buy Tata Steel's loss-making UK operations, whose steel industry has been hit by cheap Chinese imports, high energy costs and a global supply glut.
"If it happens, then for the short to medium term we would be focused on the UK.
"But if it doesn't happen then we have a few options in the US, in Africa, again India where we are looking at opportunities," Mr Gupta said, referring specifically to steel plants.
Liberty and its sister company SIMEC each have assets worth about $US400 million, with no long-term debt, and the group also includes an investments arm worth a further $US200 million.
GFG agreed late last year to buy Britain's Tungsten Bank for about Â£30 million.
"It's somewhat of a distressed asset that we will completely reinvigorate and launch as a specialist trade finance bank," Mr Hambro said.
SIMEC, which has energy, mining and infrastructure assets, is also looking at coking coal assets in Australia, Mr Gupta said.
SIMEC is planning a major expansion of its European trading operations.
"The UK and Europe is the first place - but it's not the only place," Mr Gupta said.
"We'd look at Asia, Middle East, Africa, even America."