Calcutta: The board of Usha Martin will meet on Monday to consider a potential sale of the steel business.

At least two companies, Tata Steel and JSW Steel, are understood to have shown interest for the 1-million-tonne steel plant located near Jamshedpur.

Usha Martin's stock was locked in the upper circuit of 20 per cent on the stock exchanges throughout the trading session on Friday as punters were hoping for the company to secure a hefty valuation for the asset.

The stock cooled off at the close to settle at Rs 28.20, up 17.01 per cent, or Rs 4.10, after Tata Steel said it has not made a bid for the steel business.

The steel division contributed 52.1 per cent to Usha Martin's turnover for 2017-18, while the more profitable wire and wire rope division made up the rest.

Initially, the company was trying to sell the wire rope business and appointed RBS to find a buyer as no one was interested in the steel asset. Later, it brought in McKinsey to come up with a road map for the steel business to reduce debt.

However, as the global cycle turned positive, backed by strong demand and prices, there were interests for the steel business.

Incidentally, Usha Martin was globally known as a wire and wire rope player with presence in several overseas locations before it went for backward integration and built a steel plant.

"It will make sense to keep the wire and wire rope business and sell the steel plant if the offer for both is the same. But, at the end of the day, everything will boil down to how much the company can garner by selling one of the two," a source privy to the development said.

The wire rope division made operational profit of Rs 209.3 crore compared with Rs 99.7 crore by the steel business. But interest cost, which rose to Rs 522.8 crore in the last fiscal from Rs 498.5 crore a year ago, meant it posted a loss of Rs 282.34 crore.

However, there is still a question mark if any sale can go through. Cousin brothers - Prashant and Rajeev Jhawar - are still locked in bitter battle over the control of the company. "Unless they meet eye to eye, no sale will go through," the source quoted above, added.