Chatterjee: Looking ahead

Calcutta, Aug. 6: Tata Steel has entered the list of Fortune 500 companies following its acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus Group Plc last year.

The Indian company is ranked 231st on the list after it combined the balance sheet of Corus with its own.

The company’s revenue for 2007-08 stood at $32.8 billion. Two Indian companies, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), are ahead of Tata Steel on the list. While IOC is ranked 116th, RIL’s rank is 206.

Tata Steel is expected to move up further this year as steel prices have hardened globally.

While Corus will reap rich dividends from its sales in the European market, Tata Steel may not be able to benefit much from the price spike because of pressure from the Indian government to hold back prices in the domestic market to contain inflation.

However, the company will be betting big on the expanded capacity of the Jamshedpur plant.

The capacity of the plant has been raised to 6.8 million tonnes from 5 million tonnes.

It is also ready to kick off the Kalinganagar plant in Orissa. Tata Steel group chief operating officer Koushik Chatterjee, who was in Calcutta today to attend an IT event organised by Nasscom and the Confederation of Indian Industry, said the company hoped to start work soon.

He said the company would raise funds for the project during this year.

“We will take a decision and announce it after the second quarter,” he said.

He did not indicate how much the company could raise, but it is likely to be structured project finance.

Global arm

Chatterjee said the company had no plans to list Tata Steel Global now. Tata Steel has recently brought all its overseas businesses – Corus, NatSteel, Tata Steel Thailand and the mines – under the umbrella of this new company.