Tata Steel Q1 standalone net down 47 per cent at Rs790 crore

Tata Steel Ltd, the country's largest private sector steelmaker, today reported a 47 per cent fall in its fiscal first quarter (April-June 2009-10) standalone net profit.

Tata Steel said its standalone net profit fell to Rs790 crore ($163 million) for the fiscal first quarter, from Rs1,488 crore in the year-earlier period. Net sales fell to Rs5,550 crore from Rs6,170 crore in the same quarter of the previous year.

Tata Steel said it adopted the Companies (Accounting Standards) Amendment Rules 2009 relating to Accounting Standard 11 during the last quarter of 2008-09. This has resulted in an exchange translation gain of Rs17.10 crore adjusted to the cost of capital assets during the current quarter and Rs3.92 crore being amortisation of cumulative net loss charged to profit and loss account.

Had the company followed the previous practice of recognising the translation gain / loss in the profit and loss account, the net profit for the period ended 30 June 2009 would have been higher by Rs277.06 crore, the company said in a release.

The board of directors of Tata Steel at its meeting today also approved the scheme of amalgamation of Hooghly Met Coke and Power Company Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary) with Tata Steel Limited. The amalgamation will be effective from 1 April 2009 subject to receipt of all the approvals, the release said.

The company said its recently-issued GDRs have not been considered for computing diluted earnings per share for the period ended 30 June 2009. Tata Steel issued Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) for a gross amount of $500 million and allotted 65,410,589 GDRs on 24 July 2009, each GDR representing one share at a price of $7.644 per GDR.