Tata Steel reported that its losses in the December quarter widened to Rs 763 crore against Rs 603 crore registered in the same period last year, largely due to rising costs in India and lower demand in Europe. Net sales were lower at Rs 31,821 crore (Rs 32,964 crore).
The company expects better performance in the coming quarters with the ramping up of fresh capacity of three million tonnes at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and restart of second blast furnace at the Port Talbot steelworks in the UK after the £185-million rebuilding project.
Tata Steel Group has a net debt of Rs 57,981 crore ($10.5 billion) and plans to raise about Rs 12,000-Rs 13,000 crore from banks to finance its Odisha project.
Koushik Chatterjee, Whole-time Director and Group CFO, said the company would focus on cost cutting measures and divest smaller loss-making overseas assets to improve liquidity.
“In last nine months, we have raised about £100 million through sale of smaller portfolio. Being a continuous process, there is no fixed target and the board will take the final call on divestment at an appropriate time,” he said.
During the quarter, Tata Steel Europe sold stake in three subsidiaries Tata Steel International (UK), Tata Steel International (North America) and Vlietjonge BV.
Besides, it offloaded stake in joint venture VTS Track Technologies.
Tata Steel International (Singapore) Holdings Pte disposed off stake in Tata Steel International (Hongkong). The deals have resulted in a loss of Rs 19.78 crore.
Deloitte Haskins & Sells, the company’s auditing firm, informed that the financial statement of nine associates companies were not available.
Among them, a share of profits of Rs 9.86 crore and Rs 24.78 crore for the quarter and nine months were added on account of two associates. While that of seven companies have not been included, it said.
Suresh.iyengar@thehindu.co.in