Tata Steel Ltd 144A

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Catastyle 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.

Good afternoon, everyone, on this Saturday afternoon. And welcome to our call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter and the full year financial year FY26. We have with us Mr. Narendran, our CEO and Managing Director, and Mr. Chatterjee, our Executive Director and CFO. They will make a few opening comments, and then we will take any questions you may have. As always, the discussion will be covered by the Safe Harbor Clause on the first page of our presentation. I hope you had a chance to go to the presentation. It was uploaded on our website yesterday. So with that, I will request Narendran to make a few opening comments. Thank you.

Thanks, Samita, and hello, everyone. A few comments before I hand over to Kaushik. Tata Steel delivered a strong performance in FY26 with improved margins, expanding across operating geographies despite subdued pricing and challenges during the year. The performance is a cumulative impact of multiple decisions and disciplined execution over the last few years and positions as well for the next phase of growth and value creation. India for us is a key anchor of our growth strategy, with annual crude steel production and deliveries increasing 8% year-on-year to around 23 million tonnes, and the successful ramp-up of the 5 million tonnes per annum expansion at Kalinga Nagar, alongside the commissioning of the downstream facilities, reflects a value-led growth strategy for India. This is supported by a strong marketing network and deep customer engagement, and we maximise deliveries to chosen segments, and some segmental highlights are as follows. The automotive and special products business delivered best of a quarterly and annual volumes, continues a kneeling and galvanizing line at Kalinga Nagar, which is a state-of-the-art facility, secured over 25 new-grade approvals across ultra-high-strength steels and coated products, enabling customers to meet evolving safety and light-weighting requirements. FI26 also marked a shift in our approach to customer relationship from engagement-led initiatives to solution-oriented partnerships, anchored in innovation and AI-led enablement. As a result, our branded and retail segment continued to scale. And Tata Tiscona retail brand achieved the best of annual volumes, while Tata Stelium, our cold roll brand, achieved robust growth in the volumes with a 28% year-on-year growth. Innovation continues to differentiate our construction solutions and help cater to complex project requirements. We deployed the InQuik modular bridge system at the Varanasi Ranchi Kolkata Espresso in just 24 days. and introduced a first-of-its-kind mobile board pile cage solution in significantly enhancing on-site efficiency. In discerning segments, we strengthened our presence in shipbuilding and oil and gas, aided by international certifications that enable us to participate in higher specification and globally competitive orders with stringent quality and reliability requirements. Our downstream businesses, including tubes, wires, and colors, achieved the best of our sales, while Tinplate achieved record annual sales of the Paxil edible oil cans. We remain committed to our India growth agenda with continued investments across capacity, downstream integration and sustainable steelmaking. During the year, we commissioned a scrap-based 0.75 million ton electric arc furnace at Ludhiana and progress continues on the proposed expansion at Nilachal, which will support the next phase of value-accurative growth. In UK, annual delivery stood at 2.2 million tons, reflecting subdued demand dynamics. And we welcome the recently announced revisions to safeguard measures, including 60% reduction in tariff-free quotas and higher duties, which are expected to support a more balanced market environment. Continued and calibrated policy support will be critical to enable a sustained recovery in the market. In Netherlands, the liquid steel production was broadly stable at 6.7 million tonnes, while deliveries were 6.1 million tonnes. Policy measures, including tighter safeguards, effective from the 1st of July, and the ongoing implementation of CBAM are reshaping trade flows and enabling preference for local supply. Recently, our operations have been impacted by temporary suspension of the direct steel plant at Imhotep following emission observations. However, we have now resolved the issue and the plant is expected to restart soon with due regulatory clearance. Separately, we continue to deeply engage with the province and the environmental regulators on emissions compliance at our coke and gas production facilities and the future of these facilities. I must emphasize that the company has undertaken several measures in the last two years to enhance its environment standards in the coke and gas plants and given the age of these plants, we are now considering closure of these plants in the future. However, any decision on closure of these plants will have to be done in a safe, planned and controlled manner. Finally, the developments in West Asia have increased costs and supply chain risk around energy, freight and some raw materials. In the near term, improved pricing trends across India, Netherlands, and UK should help absorb these cost pressures. In India, upstream are largely operational, though there are some impact on our downstream galvanizing template and color-coded lines because of the shortage of some critical inputs like propane. We are actively trying to mitigate this, and most of the lines are now back in full operation. We continue to monitor the evolving situation closely with a close eye on the demand dynamics. With that, I will now hand over to Kaushik for his comments. Thank you.