Tata Steel to pare debt by $1 billion a year, expansion to be India centric

Tata Steel Ltd will continue to reduce debt by around $ 1 billion a year but the company does not aim to reduce it to net debt zero levels given its expansion plans, Chairman N Chandrasekaran told shareholders at the company's 115th Annual General Meeting on June 28.

The company aims to spend Rs 10,000 crore-Rs 12,000 crore a year on capital expenditure going ahead, but may spend more if an acquisition opportunity arises, he said. The capex would be focused on India, and the company has no plans to spend more on adding capacity at its overseas plants.

"The main thing is to have the right capital structure, and not blindly go for zero debt. Currently our debt to equity ratio and the debt to EBITDA ratio are both less than one. The company has a capital structure which is very strong and taking to zero debt can make the company's capital structure inefficient," said Chandrasekaran.

This was Chandrasekaran's first Tata Steel AGM after he was reappointed as the Tata Group's chairman for a second term of five years in February.

The Tata Steel chief said that the company will continue to to deleverage to maintain the key ratios at comfortable levels.

"We will continue to reduce the debt because we know that the EBITDA level may not be at this level always. But with the capacity expansion that we are currently planning, the company is comfortable to create a good level of EBITDA. So we will continue to reduce the debt but the intent is not to take it to zero debt," he said.

Tata Steel's gross debt stood at Rs 75,561 crore at the end of fiscal 2021-22 after the company repaid a debt of Rs 15,232 crore during the year. The company has a stated strategy of reducing debt by $ 1 billion (around Rs 7,896 crore) every year.