You can’t let two quarters decide the valuation of a company: Tata Steel MD

From a Tata Steel point of view, we have been trying to create strong and sustainable businesses. In India, we have always been structurally strong but we have not had the size. In Europe, we’ve had the size but not the structural strength. So, what we’ve been doing in past few years is grow in India to a size and scale that is important to have in India, which is a growing market, and to have a business in Europe that is structurally strong. I think the partnership and joint venture with Thyssen helps us create that. The kind of investment that Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp have made into technology sets us up to service the customer well here as customers here expect us to be at the cutting edge as far as technology is concerned. It’s a tough industry so you need to have sustainable businesses

It was difficult. ThyssenKrupp had its own pressures and they have shareholders who were demanding a relook. Our point of view was that you can’t let two quarters decide the valuation of a company. One of the reasons we didn’t have great quarters in the last two was that we were carrying out significant investments particularly in the Netherlands, to upgrade facilities there. The operating team in ThyssenKrupp understood that and this was a good solution where you keep it at 50:50 but you are given warrants which they can encash which are triggered only when you do an IPO. You have something in hand which is not going against the structure or philosophy of the joint venture.

When you do an IPO you want the business to be on a strong footing. ThyssenKrupp has the right to decide on timing but the timing will depend on how quickly we can realise the synergies and get the right value from the market.

The synergies are very significant [€400-500 million annually) – we have detailed plans for those plans and we are on track on that. With this joint venture we have two of the best sites in Europe – Port Talbot has structural challenges which are nothing to do with the people but inherent in the site but we are well positioned. We have a strong franchise. We have to make sure the integration happens well. We are conscious that we have multiple cultures coming on board but we have done this before.

We believe it’s the right time in the European market: conditions have returned in terms of steel demand, which is positive. The countries that have struggled the most like Spain are starting to do quite well so the conditions are ideal. Globally, steel demand is also getting better: all major steel consuming countries are growing. We are coming together at the right time to make this a success.

In terms of direct exports to the US, the pain is not as much as we had feared because many of the customers in the US don’t have any other option but to buy the steel we send to them.

So particularly for the packaging industry they have given us the price increases that are required to cover the cost of higher tariffs. I feel in some sense the US customers are paying a higher price for it than globally what customers are paying. If you look at the hot rolled coil prices in the US today it is on a metric ton basis 25 to 30 per cent higher than it is in the rest of the world.

We are less concerned about what we are selling into the US. We are more concerned about what could come our way because the US has introduced these measures.

We have a strong footprint in the continent and a significant position in the UK so we are well positioned: if the UK closes up we have a footprint there, if it doesn’t it is as it is today. If I look at Tata Steel Europe we are 10 million (tonnes) and 3 million in the UK so that is less than 30 per cent of production. If you look at the joint venture we have 22 million, 3 million of which is in the UK so the joint venture is less vulnerable to what happens in the UK. Structurally you become stronger as a joint venture than as Tata Steel Europe. The risk is there but it could also be an opportunity. It depends on which way the pound moves, and what the negotiate. We sell into Spain and the southern European markets from the UK. The UK footprint is much smaller than it once was: Port Talbot is a single site operation: what is let for us in the UK can be defended better. The UK business has gone from being EBITDA negative to EBITDA positive. So it’s a problem to solve rather than a crisis it was two years back.

The first year of course was great but the crisis was obviously something that no one anticipated- either the severity or intensity of the crisis. European steel demand did not recover for 10 years. It was a unique set of circumstances: a lot of things we thought would go right went wrong but to me what we did was we worked very hard over the past ten years, and we didn’t give up. We had the restructuring of our businesses and sold some of them and took some tough calls.

Our people in Europe worked very hard and we grew in India. When we acquired Corus we were 4 million (tonnes a year) in India and 18 million here so most of the capital was invested here. Over the past ten years as we’ve gone about restructuring Europe and reduced Tata Steel’s European footprint from 18 to 10 million, in India we’ve grown from 4 to 13 million so as a consolidated company we are in a much stronger position today and this continues. 13 million in India is going to become 25 or 26 million in the next five years and in Europe we’ve created a 22 million entity. The learnings for us in our industry is how important it is to be structurally strong: you have to be the last man standing. We always had the position to be the last man standing in India and by creating this footprint in mature markets we have the same. It’s not about top line growth but about a consolidated enterprise that has the resources to invest in technology, in upgrading facilities.

One of the reasons for coming into Europe is that there are a lot of learnings from sophisticated mature markets that we can take back to emerging and growing markets. It helps to give us a preview of what to expect in Indian markets - having an insight into mature markets helps us plan better: many products that are developed here have also been developed or are being developed in India.

At the time it was the right decision. You must think of what was happening in the industry, it was consolidating very rapidly. Had we known there was going to be a global financial crisis 12 months down the road I don’t know what we would have done. Everyone would have sat on capital at the time rather than spend it. In our industry, it is important to make a call. There is never a perfect time but I think we have the confidence to have outlasted many difficult cycles and we will continue to deal with them.

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