Tata Steel got off to a firm start and hit a 52-week high in early trades on Tuesday, with investors cheering the company's turnaround quarterly results.
The steelmaker reported consolidated net profit of Rs 921.09 crore for the quarter ended June 2017, as compared to net loss of Rs 3183.07 crore in the year-ago quarter. The company's consolidated net sales increased 18.9% to Rs 29,386.76 crore in the June 2017 quarter, over its sales in the corresponding quarter in fiscal 2015-16.
In the past one month, the stock has fared exceptionally well, outperforming the benchmark indices Sensex and the Nifty50 by pretty good margins. It has earned more than 10% during this period, as compared to the BSE benchmark's near 3% gain.
The stock's performance (up almost 60%) in the last one year has been quite strong as well. The Sensex, during the period, has gained just around 15%.
Befoe exceptional items (Rs 617 crore, due largely to provision for mining related litigation), Tata Steel's consolidated net profit shot up by a whopping 311.14% to Rs 1550 crore, over the year-ago quarter.
Although the company's operational performance was strong in India and in Europe businesses, its South-East Asian operations suffered due to mining related litigation.
The company, which has commercial presence in more than 50 countries and operates in 26 countries, has announced that its subsidiary Tata Steel Europe's strategic portfolio restructuring that emphaises focus on strip business is now completed with the company selling its 42-inch and 84-inch pipe mills in Hartlepool, UK to LIberty House Group. Tata Steel sold its stake in Tata Motors for a gross consideration of around Rs 3778 crore in the April - June 2017 quarte and this took the aggregate amount monetised by the company through divestments in the last five years to Rs14.266 crore.
Tata Steel shares spurted to Rs 624.35 on BSE, and are currently hovering around Rs 621, up 3.5% from Monday's closing price. On the National Stock Exchange, the stock is up 3.7% at Rs 621.70, after touching a high of Rs 624.85.
