Tata Steel ties up Rs 17K cr debt for Bhushan Steel buy

Tata Steel has tied up a debt of Rs 17,000 crore to acquire Bhushan Steel Ltd and plans to pump Rs 18,000 crore as equity for the Rs 35,200 crore asset.

The company says is ready for the buy out of Bhushan Steel and is awaiting all regulatory approvals.

Tata Steel may well become the first company to complete the process of acquiring debt-ridden Bhushan Steel under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) clearing its resolution plan on Tuesday.

Koushik Chatterjee, executive director and chief financial officer, Tata Steel, said the possibility of delisting the stressed asset cannot be ruled out.

The Bhushan Steel lenders have a 12% stake in the company and there are around 5,000 employees, who "will be taken on board, as per the resolution plan given by us," said T V Narendran, chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Steel.

Meanwhile, the Tata Steel management is looking to the hearing scheduled today (Thursday) at National Company Law Appellate Tribunal to see whether the NCLT orders is challenged.

The company also expressed concern over the delay in the entire process as already 270 days have passed for the resolution process, after which, according to IBC rules, the asset has to be liquidated.

Tata Steel Europe is seeking buyers for its five non-core business units that supply products to niche markets. "These are some of the smaller assets, some of them are spread out to multiple countries," said Chatterjee.

Meanwhile, the company reported a net profit of Rs 14,688 crore as against a loss of Rs 1,168 crore the corresponding quarter a year ago. The huge jump was on account of an exceptional non-cash gain of restricting of a UK pension scheme during the quarter.

The gain in profits was despite lower production the company had witnessed of 6.26 million tonne (mt) during Q4 as compared to 6.40 mt a year ago. The fall in production was due to technical snag led shutdown of a blast furnace at Kalinganagar plant.

BACK IN BLACK

• Tata Steel has reported a net profit of Rs 14,688 crore in Q4 as against a loss of Rs 1,168 crore the corresponding quarter a year ago
   
• The huge jump was on account of an exceptional non-cash gain of restricting of a UK pension scheme during the quarter