Tata Steel is the process of shutting down its subsidiary Tayo Rolls in Jamshedpur and sell off some of its assets in South-East Asia to have a leaner structure and trim debt.

Tayo Rolls is a joint venture with Japan-based Yodogawa Steel promoted in 1968. Based out of Jamshedpur, Tayo is into cast rolls, forged rolls, special castings and pig iron. It has not registered any revenue for the last two financial years.

Tata Steel’s operations in South-East Asia started in 2004 with the acquisition of NatSteel, Singapore. In 2006, it acquired Thailand-based steelmaker Millennium Steel to strengthen its operations.

Answering a shareholder's question at the company's 111th AGM on Friday, N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Steel, said the company is looking to sell sub-scale and non-core asset to simplify the structure.

The operations of Tayo Rolls, which were suspended some time back, is in the process of closure, he added.

Tata Steel is also in an advanced stage of hiving off its European asset into a 50:50 joint venture with ThyssenKrupp.

At the time of an initial public offering later ThyssenKrupp will increase its stake to 55 per cent, said Koushik Chatterjee, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Steel.

Allaying shareholders’ concern on high debt, Chandrasekaran said the net debt has gone up from ₹69,215 crore to ₹85,000 crore after the acquisition of Bhushan Steel, but it will come down by ₹20,000 crore once the ThyssenKrupp joint venture is finalised.

On Friday, Tata Steel had sought shareholders’ approval to raise ₹12,000 crore through private placement of non-convertible debentures.

Dwelling on Bhushan Steel acquisition, TV Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel, said the experience with the newly acquired asset has been satisfactory for the last 45 days and fund infusion into the company will enable a quicker turnaround.

After completion of the joint venture with Thhyssenkrupp and acquisition in India, the group's total steel capacity will be about 23 million tonnes per annum, he said.

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