Tata Steel Q4 profit at Rs 14,688 crore, beats Street estimates

Tata Steel Wednesday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 14,688 crore for the March quarter, as against a loss of Rs 1,168 crore in the same quarter last year, benefiting from a one-time gain of Rs 11,376.14 crore from the restructuring of its UK business' pension scheme.

The Jamshedpur-based company's consolidated revenue from operations for the reporting quarter grew to Rs 36,132 crore, up from the Rs 35,304.89 crore reported last year.

The company's total expenses rose to Rs 32,626.42 crore, around 5 percent higher than in the corresponding quarter last year. Cost of raw material, which accounts for the lion's share of overall expenses, rose only 4 percent on year to Rs 10,369.77 crore.

Operating profit margin for the quarter was 14.53 percent, 215 basis points lower than the 16.68 percent reported last year. This was because expenses, despite having grown at a muted pace, rose faster than the company's operating income.

A Reuters poll estimated the consolidated net profit of the domestic steel-making behemoth at Rs 2,552 crore.

The steel maker's deliveries in the domestic market declined to 3.03 million tons for the quarter, as production was impacted due to an unforeseen blast furnace outage at its Kalinganagar plant. However, the issue has been resolved now and the plant is fully operational.

"Tata Steel performance has been robust in FY18 driven by our strong execution strategy and supported by favourable global demand-supply balance. During the year, our Indian operations delivered volume growth better than the market on the back of the ramp-up at our Kalinganagar plant and the strength of our marketing network and brand equity. Growth was broad-based across our marketing segments," said TV Narendran,  Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tata Steel.