Tata Steel sold 3.85 crore shares of Tata Motors to institutional investors on Friday for ₹1,251 crore. The sale was part of its portfolio restructuring, it said in a statement.

At the end of June, Tata Steel owned about 16 crore shares, or 5.54 per cent, in Tata Motors. The company said that the price was discovered through a book-building process.

In August, Tata Steel sold 2.18 per cent (1.94 crore shares) of Titan to Tata Sons for a net consideration of ₹637 crore.

Reassessing portfolio The steelmaker has been selling its assets and non-core business to repay loans and bring down the interest outgo on its debt of about ₹70,000 crore. Last fiscal year, the interest cost rose 12 per cent to ₹4,848 crore.

Hit by the sharp drop in metal prices on the back of weak demand, Tata Steel has been reassessing its portfolio investments and cashing out to book profits.

The company had invested ₹22,000 crore in the first phase of the 6 million tonnes per annum plant at Kalinganagar in Odisha. The much-delayed project is expected to go on stream in a few months even as steel companies battle the onslaught of imports from China and other countries.

The Centre last week levied a 20 per cent duty to protect domestic steelmakers. Tata Steel recently commissioned a coke oven plant in Kalinganagar with a yearly production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes.

Tata Steel also announced that the Bombay High Court has approved the proposed merger of its subsidiaries Tata Metaliks and Tata Metaliks D1 Pipes with itself.

The scheme of amalgamation, however, is still pending approval before the Calcutta High Court, it said.

On Friday, Tata Steel shares were down 1 per cent at ₹229 while Tata Motors dipped 3 per cent to ₹328.

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