Sail turns soft after reporting Q3 net loss

Steel Authority of India (Sail) slipped 1.14% to Rs 43.45 after consolidated net loss stood at Rs 343.57 crore in Q3 December 2019 (Q3 FY20) as against a net profit of Rs 653.93 crore reported in Q3 December 2018 (Q3 FY19).

Net sales rose 4.4% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 16,542.48 crore in Q3 FY20. The Q3 figures were announced after market hours on Friday, 14 February 2020.

Pre-tax loss stood at Rs 498.85 crore in Q3 FY20 as compared to pre-tax profit of Rs 982.33 crore in Q3 FY19. Current tax expenses surged 501.3% to Rs 41.79 crore over Rs 6.95 crore paid in Q3 December 2018.

Despite the reduction in prices, Sail has been able to achieve higher revenue through its continual push towards higher volumes which saw production (3.9 MT) and sales (4.1 MT) grow by 3% and 26% over the corresponding period last year (CPLY) respectively. However, the reduction in prices, which has hurt the financial performance of all major domestic steel producers during the quarter, impacted the profitability of Sail as well.

Anil Kumar Chaudhary, chairman, Sail commented that, "The quarter had been quite challenging for the entire industry in terms of subdued realisations thereby impacting the financial performance of all major producers. However, utilising this as an opportunity, we have accelerated our efforts towards stabilizing the production from the new mills and continuously improving process efficiencies. The company is enriching its product basket with more focus on cost minimization to improve its bottom-line."

He further added, "Despite lower steel prices amidst stiff competition during the third quarter, we could achieve significant growth in sales and saleable steel production. The recent improvement in the market conditions combined with the efforts towards cost reduction, we are hopeful of doing better in the 4th quarter."

Sail has made good ground in the 3rd quarter towards improvement in techno-economic parameters viz., BF productivity, coke rate, CDI usage, specific energy consumption and production through concast route which improved by 12.4%, 5.3%, 40%, 2.4% and 8.5% respectively over the previous quarter.

Sail is engaged in the manufacturing of flat products, such as hot rolled (HR) coils, HR plates, cold rolled (CR) coils, pipes and electric sheets, and long products, such as thermo mechanically treated (TMT) bars and wire rods.

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