SAIL back in black; Q3 net profit at Rs 43 cr

After 10 straight quarters of losses, country's largest steel maker SAIL today reported a standalone net profit of Rs 43.16 crore for the three months to December 31, 2O17.
This figure is after taking into consideration other comprehensive income, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) said in a filing to the BSE.
However, the company had posted a standalone net loss of Rs 794.84 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
The standalone revenue from operations during the quarter increased to Rs 15,443.13 crore, over Rs 12,688.47 crore in the year-ago period.
The PSU said in a statement that it has earned profit before tax of Rs 82 crore in the third quarter of 2017-18 after 10 quarters and added that this marks an evident step in the turnaround of the company which continually thwarted challenges and has steadily moved forward towards profitability.

SAIL Chairman P K Singh said, "The entire SAIL workforce has been dedicatedly working towards improving the company's performance. The process of turnaround had already started where we continually registered improvement in SAIL's EBITDA through various initiatives taken by management and internalised by SAIL collective."

The company's third quarter result of FY'18 "is an amalgamation of higher production, improving efficiencies, focused marketing, cost control initiatives, a massive two way company-wide communication exercise and most importantly a collective effort and active participation of our committed employees to get back to profits", Singh said.
"Maintaining strong and EBIDTA positive performance for seven consecutive quarters in Q3FY18 also SAIL has registered EBITDA of Rs 1,571 crore, which is a phenomenal jump as against EBITDA of Rs 35 crore during CPLY (corresponding period last year)," the statement said.

Steadily intensifying production ramp up from its new mills, SAIL is targeting higher sales volume coupled with more value added and enriched products, it said.
Company's strategic planning on production and marketing front, including newer domestic and potential export destinations, has helped SAIL achieve the strong result and start its journey of returning to profits, it added.
Its total saleable steel sales volume of 3.77 million tonnes (MT) in the the third quarter of 2017-18 rose 15 per cent over corresponding period last year.
Stressing on SAIL modernisation Singh said, "As we enter into the sixtieth year of production in February, 2018, we have almost completed our balance modernisation projects resulting into further capacity addition. SAIL is focused on first production to capacity and then production to potential beyond capacity."

With stabilisation of downstream facilities also converging simultaneously, he said, the company is in a position to offer an array of value added products to market which are developed keeping in mind the requirement of various steel intensive sectors.