Tata steel narrows its loss at Rs 1,168 cr in Q4

Tata Steel on Tuesday reported that it narrowed its consolidated loss to Rs 1,168 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2017 as compared to Rs 3,042 crore of loss in the same period last year.

The steel producer's turnover in the quarter under review stood at Rs 35,305 crore, up by 30.4 per cent from Rs 27,071 crore in the corresponding period, while deliveries increased to 6.83 million tonnes in the fourth quarter ended March as compared to 6.32 million tonnes a year ago.

"EBITDA improved to Rs. 4,324 crore for the quarter, up 28 per cent sequentially and 93 per cent year-on-year on the back of supportive realisations, strong growth in deliveries and ramp-up of Kalinganagar plant. Full year EBITDA was Rs 11,953 crore for the company," it said in a statement.

In the India operations, deliveries grew by 7 per cent sequentially and 18 per cent over last year, outperforming the domestic markets which grew by 8 per cent sequentially and by 0.6 per cent over last year. Volumes for 2016-17 were 10.97 million tonnes.

Automotive sales grew by 9 per cent over last year, while industrial products, projects and exports vertical witnessed a 47 per cent growth.

"Tata Steel continued to outperform the market in this quarter as well. We recorded robust sales across all our target segments and our overall volumes stood at 3.21 million tonnes," said company's India and South East Asia Managing Director T.V. Narendran.

In the European operations, liquid steel production in the fourth quarter of 2.62 million tonnes was flat on a sequential and yearly basis. Over the full year, production was 5 per cent lower due to the focus on higher-value sales, it said.

Deliveries in the fourth quarter were 22 per cent higher on a sequential basis, leading to a 25 per cent uplift in revenue.

Koushik Chatterjee, Group Executive Director (Finance and Corporate), said: "The ongoing transformation programme in the UK, performance improvements in India and Netherlands contributed to the strong underlying performance. The market support and favourable currencies also helped the business to achieve this significantly improved performance."

"The capex was lower than plan due to prioritisation of our capital expenditure programme and we have been able to keep the debt stable despite price related impact on working capital," he added.

Chatterjee also said a significant milestone during the quarter was the completion of the consultation process and closure of the defined benefit scheme in Britain to future accruals, he added.

--IANS

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