Kirby Adams will take over as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Corus, the European subsidiary of Tata Steel. The company also approved the appointment of H M Nerukar as executive director on its board.

Adams is the former chief executive of BlueScope Steel, Australia while Nerukar is currently the chief operating officer of Tata Steel.

Both the appointments would be effective from 9 April.

The decision was taken by the board of directors of  Tata Steel, which met to adopt the company's consolidated third quarter results.

Nerukar will be executive director, India and South East Asia, and Adams will be additional director who would take charge as the CEO of Corus on 2 March.

Adams will replace Philippe Varin, the current CEO of Corus and Tata Steel Europe, who will step down on 6 April. Nerukar will report to B Muthuraman, managing director of Tata Steel Ltd, who will, in addition, be responsible for the group corporate function.

Tata Steel, the world's sixth-biggest steel producer, reported a 39-per cent fall in third quarter (October-December 2008-09) consolidated net profit.

Tata Steel said its earnings took a hit because of inventory write-downs at some units, a foreign exchange loss and a tax write-back.

Tata Steel wrote back Rs1,744 crore worth of inventory of raw materials and finished steel during the quarter. It also incurred an unrealised foreign exchange loss of Rs201 crore during the third quarter on convertible shares, compared with a gain of Rs44.83 crore a year earlier.

A change in accounting norms relating to pension plans for Corus, however, helped increase profit for the December quarter by Rs4,256 crore, Tata Steel said.

Net profit for the quarter slid to Rs814 crore ($161.6 million) from Rs1,325 crore a year earlier. Net sales rose 4 per cent to Rs33,191 crore from Rs31,898 crore.

The financial results also included those of Tata Steel's units in Thailand and Singapore, the company said.