SAIL hikes steel prices by upto Rs. 600 a tonne

According to Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) Chairman S. K. Roongta, the compnay has increased the price of about Rs 500 to Rs 600 a tonne on account of hike in excise duty and the price increase is efective from March 1.

Mr. Roongta said that the excise duty hike will result in going up of steel prices.

The finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in budget presented last week raised the excise duty by 2-10 per cent across the board.

Moreover, the government in order to boost the economic activities, had earlier initiated massive spending programmes as well as slashed duties in three stages from December 2008 following the global economic downturn.

The stock is currently trading at Rs.228, up by 0.84%.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs.228.4 till now, as against the 52-week high of Rs.258.3.The stock hit a low of Rs.208.35 during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs.70.95 on March 4, 2009.

The stock opens at Rs.208.35 at BSE. The total traded volume of the scrip on BSE till now stood at 109930.
Meanwhile today, the BSE Sensex is trading up by 9.19 points, or 0.05% , at 17009.2 on 9:23 AM.

Meanwhile today, the NSE Nifty is trading down by -16.00 points, or -0.31% , at 5072.1.

SAIL has an equity capital of Rs 4,130.40 crore as of 2009 Dec. The face value per share is Rs 10. At the current price of Rs 228, the P/E multiple stood at 15.2317880794702 with book Value of 67.75 and P/BV at 3.37.

The total shareholding pattern of the company as on Dec 2009 stood at Promoters- 85.82%, Institutional Investors- 11.99%, General Public- 1.70% and other investors- 0.49%.

Considering the current price of Rs. 228 at 9:23:00 AM , the stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 04/03/2010 surged 9.01% as compared to the Sensex”s return of 5.23% and NSE Nifty”s 5.23 % returns.

Considering the current price of Rs. 228 at 9:23:00 AM , the stock had outperformed the market over the past one quarter till 04/03/2010 surged 11.27% as compared to the Sensex”s return of 0.15% and NSE Nifty”s 0.15 % returns.

Meanwhile, the steel Secretary Atul Chaturvedi also said that the prices of steel were set to go up.

“They (steel prices) will go up now. You have to decipher between inflation and recession. Companies have to earn money and this could be done only if either raw material prices go down or their steel prices go up,” Mr. Chaturvedi said.

Meanwhile, SAIL last month proposes to have its present crude steel capacity of 13 MT increased to 60 MT in 2020 through Brownfield and Greenfield expansion.

However, SAIL is currently undertaking Brownfield expansion from present crude steel capacity of 13 MT to 23.7 MT in 2012.

Further, SAIL Chairman S K Roongta had stated that they envisage reaching a level of 60 MT crude steel capacities by 2020 through Brownfield, Greenfield expansions and acquisitions.

Meanwhile, existing SAIL steel plants would be modernized and capacity of units would be expanded to their maximum potential.

Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has posted a net profit of Rs 16755.50 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2009 where as the same was at Rs 8433.40 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2008. Total Income is Rs 102854.70 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2009 where as the same was at Rs 93477.60 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2008.