SAIL's quarter 4 net profit down by 18 per cent

New Delhi, May 25: State owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) today registered a drop in the net profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2006, by 18 per cent at Rs 1,103 crore as compared to Rs 2,678 crore last year, recommending an interim dividend of 12.5 per paid in February 2006.

The company's board of directors also recommended a dividend of 20 per cent on paid-up equity amounting to Rs 826 crore for the company's shareholders.

The net sales for the quarter were down by one per cent at Rs 9379 crore as against Rs 9534 crore for the corresponding period a year ago.

SAIL's financial results for FY06, included the financial performance of IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) that was merged with SAIL recently.

The company's net profit for the year ended March 31, 2006, also went down by 41 per cent at Rs 4,013 crore as compared to Rs 6,817 crore last fiscal.

Exports of SAIL steel increased by over 23 per cent to nearly 5.8 lakh during fy 06.

''With the current trends of steel prices improving and price of coking coal reducing, the adverse impact on profitability will be substantially neutralised in the coming months. Envisaging higher production and productivity, SAIL is confident of meeting any competitive challenge from domestic and global players, SAIL Chiarman V S Jain said.

The company's debt was down by Rs 1,472 crore to Rs 4,298 crore as compared to thge previuos year.

Capital schemes of the company valued at over Rs 4,400 crore are currently under various stages of implementation. Some of the important projects under implementation include setting up a bloom caster at Durgapur Steel Plant, slab caster at Bhilai, modification of MaeWest block system at Bokaro, and rebuilding of three coke oven batteries each at Bhilai, Bokaro and Rourkela steel plants. The company is also implementing Enterprise Resource Planning across the organisation in a phased manner, a SAIL statement said here.

UNI