India's SAIL posts quarterly profit drop on inventory costs
May 28 (Reuters) - Steel Authority of India (SAIL) (SAIL.NS), opens new tab reported a lower fourth-quarter adjusted profit on Wednesday, hurt by inventory costs.
The state-owned firm's profit before exceptional items and tax dropped 13% to 15.94 billion Indian rupees ($187 million) in the quarter ended March 31.
Revenue grew 5% to 293.16 billion rupees. But its expenses rose about 6% due to an inventory charge in the current quarter that it had not incurred a year before.
SAIL's results come a month after the government imposed a temporary 12% tax on some steel imports, known locally as a safeguard duty, to protect local producers who had to scale down operations and mull job cuts due to an influx of cheaper imports.
Earlier this month, industry leader JSW Steel (JSTL.NS), opens new tab posted quarterly profit that missed analysts' estimates as weaker prices weighed.
However, a decline in costs of iron ore and coking coal — key steelmaking ingredients — helped offset the impact of weak prices for Tata Steel (TISC.NS), opens new tab.
PEER COMPARISON
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE
-- All data from LSEG
-- $1 = 85.3840 Indian rupees
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Rolls-Royce has wowed the City — can it charm airlines too?
With the temperature gauge nearing 40C, it was a typically stifling June day in downtown Delhi last Sunday. The temperature inside the air-conditioned Taj Mahal hotel was more amenable, but Sir Tim Clark was still getting hot under the collar. The British executive, who co-founded Emirates in 1985 and has led the airline since 2003, is known for lambasting aircraft engine manufacturers — and especially Rolls-Royce. Clark has refused to take delivery of multibillion-dollar order of Airbus aircraft until a fix can be found for what he has described as the 'defective' Rolls-Royce engines that power the specific type of planes. Is it frustrating, then, that Rolls's share price is at record highs? 'Just a bit,' he responded sardonically. • Rolls-Royce reinstates dividend and announces £1bn buyback To rub salt into the wound, Rolls's chief executive, Tufan Erginbilgic, cancelled a lunch date with him at the biennial Paris Air Show next week, the 75-year-old claimed during a fringe event as Delhi hosted the annual conference of airlines trade body IATA. This allegation was later hotly disputed by the Rolls camp. Clark is not alone among airline executives in directing his ire at the Derby-based engineering giant. Bosses at British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have been left fuming at chronic problems with Rolls engines that have grounded planes, leading to swathes of cancellations. The situation is worse still on the other side of the Atlantic. Issues with engines built by the Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney led to a violent sell-off in Wizz Air shares last week. Bosses at the London-listed budget carrier were forced to issue a profit warning and remove forecasts amid concerns about contaminants in the powdered metal used to make its turbofan engines. Sentiment in the Square Mile towards Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, could hardly be more different. The company's shares have risen more than 800 per cent since Erginbilgic, a former BP executive, took office in January 2023. Five-year profit targets have been hit early, and investors have been showered with dividends and share buybacks. Rolls now boasts a stock market value of almost £75 billion, putting it among the five biggest companies in the FTSE 100 last week. The company's success has been built on the back of building and maintaining aircraft engines. Civil aerospace generates 51 per cent of Rolls's revenue and nearly two-thirds of its profits. So having won back the City, can it do the same with the airlines that ultimately keep it aloft? Rolls produces four main engine types: the clunkily named Trent XWB-84 and XWB-97, as well as the Trent 1000 and 7000. 'Yes, everybody who has Trent 1000s has the right to be very cross,' said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at the equity research firm Agency Partners. 'But the whole aero-engine industry is struggling with the latest generation of engines because they collectively ran up against the laws of physics — where the attempt to optimise fuel consumption, emissions and reliability ended up with them pushing the envelope too far.' The Trent 1000 is facing durability issues. 'The blades end up looking like someone with very bad teeth,' said Cunningham. 'We have been taking decisive action and moving quickly to prioritise the resources needed to reduce the impact created by the current industry wide supply chain constraints, it's the highest priority for our civil aerospace division,' Rolls said. The problem with the newer XWB — the -97 version of the engine that, so far, Emirates won't accept — is its propensity to be compromised in hot, sandy conditions such as those in the Middle East. The turbine blades are designed with tiny air-cooling holes. Inspections have found that these have become clogged up with glass, contained in sand blown into the engine, which melts and restricts airflow. A spokesman for Rolls said that Emirates had accepted the XWB-84 version of the engine on its A350-900 jets. The -97 will power A350-1000 aircraft. The interim response has been for Rolls to increase the number of engine inspections and replace parts more frequently. The company is working on a longer-term fix and could make an announcement as early as this month on progress. The increased number of inspections is one reason why BA and Virgin's jets are grounded more often. This has been compounded, across the aero-engine industry, by supply chain problems and labour issues. The roots of this can be traced back to the pandemic, which has led to planes being stuck in maintenance shops for longer. As a result, 15 per cent of the global fleet of aircraft is grounded, compared with the long-term average of 12 per cent, according to IATA. 'The single biggest challenge remains supply chain performance,' said Rob Watson, president of civil aerospace at Rolls. 'Things have improved, but there are still challenges. So that Covid impact is still washing through.' During the pandemic, engine manufacturers' complex network of suppliers had to stop production and furlough staff. Some of the suppliers failed. More recently, geopolitical events have affected access to raw materials. For example, titanium, a crucial metal in the production of engines, was almost exclusively sourced from Russia. 'We still see some fragility in our supply chain,' said Watson. 'So we've invested a lot in our forecasting capability, and we've now got an even better view of our supply chain's ability to order and deliver parts. 'We're doing a lot of work with our quality teams, making sure we've got the right quality in the supply chain and, in some cases, placing employees in supply chain organisations.' Cunningham at Agency Partners pointed out that labour shortages in maintenance workshops have put further strain on the ecosystem. 'All those old guys in the workshop that you used to see — the ones who, in the case of the American workshops, look like members of ZZ Top, and their equivalents in Europe — either got fired during Covid, or decided that it wasn't worth working the last few years of their career after being furloughed,' he said. This has left large parts of the sector with less experienced staff who are not as productive as their older predecessors. For BA, maintenance work on the Trent 1000 engines for its Boeing 787 Dreamliners means that the UK flag carrier has three to four planes grounded at any one time. Sources familiar with the situation said this will continue for the rest of 2025 at least. Such groundings put further pressure on other aircraft in BA's fleet — principally its older-generation Boeing 777 aircraft, which in turn require additional maintenance to compensate for extra flying hours. Sean Doyle, chief executive of British Airways, is thought to be waiting on Rolls to come up with a plan for 2026. BA this weekend declined to comment. • Everyone bashes it but BA is surging ahead … what's its secret? Virgin Atlantic said that aircraft availability continues to be 'slightly impacted' by the continued supply chain shortages related to Trent 1000 engines. 'We work very closely with Rolls-Royce to mitigate impact, and the reliability of our schedule is delivering strong results for our customers,' a spokeswoman said. British Airways recently gave the strongest sign yet that its patience with Rolls has run out in relation to the Trent 1000, however. BA's parent company, IAG, announced in May that an order of 32 Dreamliners would be powered by engines made by GE, Rolls's rival. Watson, Rolls-Royce's civil aerospace chief, said: 'Of course we were disappointed that IAG opted for GE on the recent Dreamliner order. But it's always our customers' choice. 'Let's not forget that at the same time the Dreamliner order didn't go our way, IAG placed a significant order of Rolls-Royce-powered Airbus aircraft [for BA's sister airlines Aer Lingus, Iberia and Level], which I think demonstrates the strong relationship we've built with IAG.' As for the Trent XWB-97 on which Clark at Emirates claims he is waiting, Erginbilgic has set aside £1 billion to find a long-term fix to legacy issues with it and other engines. 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Belfast Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Rachel Reeves to announce £86bn for science and technology in spending review
Regions will be handed up to £500 million with local leaders given powers to decide how investment is targeted in their communities, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said. The overall package, which will be announced as Chancellor Rachel Reeves sets out departmental spending plans on June 11, is expected to be worth more than £22.5 billion-a-year by the end of the decade. DSIT said 'every corner of the country' would benefit as local leaders are given a say on how the money is spent on leveraging expertise specific to their communities. In Liverpool, which has a long history in biotech, funding will be used to speed up drug discovery and in South Wales, which has Britain's largest semiconductor cluster, on designing the microchips used to power mobile phones and electric cars. The Chancellor said: 'Britain is the home of science and technology. Through the Plan for Change, we are investing in Britain's renewal to create jobs, protect our security against foreign threats and make working families better off.' Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: 'Incredible and ambitious research goes on in every corner of our country, from Liverpool to Inverness, Swansea to Belfast, which is why empowering regions to harness local expertise and skills for all of our benefit is at the heart of this new funding – helping to deliver the economic growth at the centre of our Plan for Change.' Local leaders including North East Mayor Kim McGuiness and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker welcomed the package, but research backers warned more is needed to secure Britain's reputation for Rottingen, chief executive of Wellcome, Britain's biggest non-governmental research funder, said: 'The Government rightly acknowledges that investing in science and technology is a key way to boost the economy. 'But while it's positive under the financial circumstances, a flat real-terms science budget, along with continuing barriers such as high visa costs for talented scientists and the university funding crisis, won't be enough for the UK to make the advances it needs to secure its reputation for science in an increasingly competitive world. 'The UK should be aiming to lead the G7 in research intensity, to bring about economic growth and the advances in health, science and technology that benefit us all. We look forward to seeing the full details at the spending review.' Meanwhile, the Institute of Physics called for a longer-term strategy for science, including a plan for teachers and other members of the skilled workforce needed to deliver advances. Tony McBride, director of policy and public affairs at the institute, said: 'It's good to see the Government recognise the power of science and innovation to transform lives and grow prosperity in every part of the UK. 'But to fully harness the transformational potential of research and innovation – wherever it takes place – we need a decade-long strategic plan for science. This must include a plan for the skilled workforce we need to deliver this vision, starting with teachers and addressing every educational stage, to underpin the industrial strategy. 'We hope that the Chancellor's statement on Wednesday will set out such a vision.' Universities UK said the Government had made a 'smart investment' and academia would put its 'shoulder to the wheel' behind the plans. Vivienne Stern, chief executive of the group representing 142 higher education providers in Britain, said: 'The UK has a real opportunity to sow the seeds of long-term growth, benefiting all parts of the UK – with universities spread right across the country working with industry and public sector bodies to turn discoveries into economic success. 'They stand ready to double down with government, building stronger links with sectors of the economy where we have real room to grow. 'This creates good jobs and attracts investment everywhere from Swansea to Aberdeen, from Barrow to Plymouth.'
South Wales Argus
2 hours ago
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Rachel Reeves to announce £86bn for science and technology in spending review
Regions will be handed up to £500 million with local leaders given powers to decide how investment is targeted in their communities, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said. The overall package, which will be announced as Chancellor Rachel Reeves sets out departmental spending plans on June 11, is expected to be worth more than £22.5 billion-a-year by the end of the decade. DSIT said 'every corner of the country' would benefit as local leaders are given a say on how the money is spent on leveraging expertise specific to their communities. In Liverpool, which has a long history in biotech, funding will be used to speed up drug discovery and in South Wales, which has Britain's largest semiconductor cluster, on designing the microchips used to power mobile phones and electric cars. The Chancellor said: 'Britain is the home of science and technology. Through the Plan for Change, we are investing in Britain's renewal to create jobs, protect our security against foreign threats and make working families better off.' Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: 'Incredible and ambitious research goes on in every corner of our country, from Liverpool to Inverness, Swansea to Belfast, which is why empowering regions to harness local expertise and skills for all of our benefit is at the heart of this new funding – helping to deliver the economic growth at the centre of our Plan for Change.' Local leaders including North East Mayor Kim McGuiness and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker welcomed the package, but research backers warned more is needed to secure Britain's reputation for science. John-Arne Rottingen, chief executive of Wellcome, Britain's biggest non-governmental research funder, said: 'The Government rightly acknowledges that investing in science and technology is a key way to boost the economy. 'But while it's positive under the financial circumstances, a flat real-terms science budget, along with continuing barriers such as high visa costs for talented scientists and the university funding crisis, won't be enough for the UK to make the advances it needs to secure its reputation for science in an increasingly competitive world. 'The UK should be aiming to lead the G7 in research intensity, to bring about economic growth and the advances in health, science and technology that benefit us all. We look forward to seeing the full details at the spending review.' Meanwhile, the Institute of Physics called for a longer-term strategy for science, including a plan for teachers and other members of the skilled workforce needed to deliver advances. Tony McBride, director of policy and public affairs at the institute, said: 'It's good to see the Government recognise the power of science and innovation to transform lives and grow prosperity in every part of the UK. 'But to fully harness the transformational potential of research and innovation – wherever it takes place – we need a decade-long strategic plan for science. This must include a plan for the skilled workforce we need to deliver this vision, starting with teachers and addressing every educational stage, to underpin the industrial strategy. 'We hope that the Chancellor's statement on Wednesday will set out such a vision.' Universities UK said the Government had made a 'smart investment' and academia would put its 'shoulder to the wheel' behind the plans. Vivienne Stern, chief executive of the group representing 142 higher education providers in Britain, said: 'The UK has a real opportunity to sow the seeds of long-term growth, benefiting all parts of the UK – with universities spread right across the country working with industry and public sector bodies to turn discoveries into economic success. 'They stand ready to double down with government, building stronger links with sectors of the economy where we have real room to grow. 'This creates good jobs and attracts investment everywhere from Swansea to Aberdeen, from Barrow to Plymouth.'
