MUMBAI: The 100th annual general meeting of Tata Steel held here on Wednesday had many firsts to it including three senior executives from a foreign company along with leaders of the company’s various employee unions sharing the dais with Tata Steel chairman Ratan Tata, as shareholders vociferously voted for all the resolutions placed before them.
Corus deputy chairman James Leng, CEO Philippe Varin and director Jacques Schraven attended the event for the first time after Tata Steel bought out the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker for $13 billion, earlier this year.
Tata Steel also announced its first quarterly consolidated performance with the April-June net profit surging to Rs 6,388 crore, from Rs 1,014 crore last year, mainly due to the Corus acquisition. Tata Steel had announced its standalone performance on July 30, where the net profit in the fiscal first quarter rose 28% to Rs 1,222 crore.
“Despite notes of gloom, the steel industry’s fortunes look firm,” chairman Ratan Tata told shareholders painting a positive outlook for the company’s future after some investors fretted that Tata Steel could have paid high for the Corus acquisition. “India is expected to consume 125 million tonnes of steel by 2010, from the 65 million tonnes it currently uses,” he said.
The Tata Steel chairman, however, said that his company now faces a challenge in “successfully integrating Corus. Today we are virtually one company with two management working together,” he added.
Tata Steel recently formed a committee to work on the integration with managing director B Muthuraman and deputy managing director Tridibesh Mukherjee the key persons from Tata Steel.
The integration aims to develop a common agenda that would draw on each other’s best practices and developing capabilities. “Tata Steel is among the world’s lowest cost producers of steel, while Corus’ strengths lie in making high-value products. The integration would be to mesh these positives,” said a senior Tata Steel executive.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
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