Jindal Steel & Power Misses Interest Payments for Third Time
Steelmaker working on selling non-core assets to cut debt
(Bloomberg) -- Jindal Steel & Power Ltd., India’s second-most indebted mill, said that it missed payment on interest due last month on some bonds, the third lapse since September.
The company did not made interest payments of 154.3 million rupees ($2.3 million) due last month on four non-convertible debentures because of short-term cash flow mismatches and the money will be paid in due course, the New Delhi-based producer said in a filing Thursday. It earlier missed interest payments on 17 bonds that were due in September and October.
Jindal Steel, weighed down by 468 billion rupees of debt, is struggling to boost revenues amid a surge in steel imports from China, Japan and Korea and weak power demand. The company is in advanced talks to sell some non-core assets to reduce the debt burden.
“The steel industry had gone through a very tough time and things are improving,” Chief Executive Officer Ravi Uppal said by phone from New Delhi. “There were some minor delays. They will get serviced, all of them.”
Shares have fallen 22 percent this year, making it the worst performer in the 10-company S&P BSE India Metal Index. The company has reported losses in the past seven quarters with the loss in the three months through June almost doubling from a year earlier to 10.8 billion rupees, it said on Sept. 8.
To contact the reporter on this story: Swansy Afonso in Mumbai at safonso2@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.net, Keith Gosman, Rebecca Keenan