Tata Steel Ltd 144A

Good day and welcome to the Tata Steel Analyst Call. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. All the attendees audio and video has been disabled from the back end and will be enabled subsequently. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Samita Shah. Thank you and over to you ma'am.

Thank you, Kinchuk. Good afternoon, everyone joining us in India and from the Far East. And good morning to all of you who are joining us from the West. On behalf of Tata Steel, welcome to this call to discuss our results for the second quarter of FY26. We published our results yesterday and there is also a detailed presentation on our website, which you can refer to if you haven't done already. As always, we will be guided. This entire call will be governed by the disclosure clause on page two of the presentation. To help you understand the results better, we have with us Mr. T.V. Narendran, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Steel, and Mr. Kaushik Chatterjee, Executive Director and CFO, Tata Steel. They will make a few opening comments, and we will then open the floor for questions. Thank you again, and I will request Narendra to make his comments, please. You're on mute, Naree.

For that, thanks, Samhita, and hello, everyone. As Samhita mentioned, I'll make a few comments and then hand over to Kaushik, and then we'll do the Q&A. The global dynamics continues to be shaped by tariffs, geopolitical tensions and elevated steel exports. And Chinese steel exports are expected to cross 100 million tons again this year. And this obviously has an impact on pricing across the world. And amidst this, Tata Steel has delivered strong improvement quarter on quarter and year on year basis. I would now like to make a few comments on the performance in geography. In India, crude steel production was up 8% quarter on quarter and 7% year on year at 5.65 million tons, largely driven by the ongoing ramp up in Kalinga Nagar and the completion of the relining of the G-blast furnace, which is down for almost six months. We continue to stay focused on driving sales even in a challenging environment, and we were able to ramp up the sales in line with our production ramp-up without having to build inventory. In fact, we increased our domestic deliveries by 20% quarter-on-quarter, a testimony to the strength of our customer relationships and a marketing and sales network. While average hot-on-coil spot prices were down about 2,300 rupees per ton quarter-on-quarter, we were able to limit the drop in our net realizations to about 1,700 rupees per ton. We were also able to offset this impact through higher volumes and the ongoing cost transformation, which has resulted in an improvement in the EBITDA margin by about 80 basis points to 25%. And some segmental highlights, the seasonal rains in the second quarter impacted construction activity across India, but we successfully grew Tata Triscom volumes by about 27% quarter on quarter, as our expanding channel network and digital platforms enabled us to leverage insights into customer behavior and cater to the evolving needs. Industrial products and projects deliveries grew by about 22% quarter-on-quarter, aided by value-accurative segments such as engineering and ready-to-use solutions. In the UK, our deliveries stood at 0.6 million tonnes, marginally lower on quarter-on-quarter basis, and we continue to work on transforming the business and the 3 million tonne, building the 3 million tonne electric car furnace in Port Talbot. In Netherlands, the liquid steel production and deliveries were broadly stable quarter-on-quarter at 1.7 million tonnes and 1.5 million tonnes respectively, and the performance was aided by the continued improvement in controllable costs. In September, we signed the non-binding letter of intent, joint letter of intent with the Dutch government on an integrated health measures and decarbonization project. And we are committed to working with all the stakeholders of resolving the outstanding points before proceeding towards an investment decision. I will now hand over to Karshik for his comments. Over to you, Karshik.