Tata steel ratings unchanged
Moodys Investors Service said Tata Steels operative performance has shown improvement on the back of government steps like import curbs besides company?s greenfield expansion in India but kept its ratings unchanged. The global ratings agency in February last year had downgraded credit ratings of Tata Steel by two notches to Ba3 from Ba1 on a weaker than expected operating performance in its key operating markets of India, Europe and South-East Asia on account of persistently weak steel prices. "Tata Steel Ltd (Ba3 negative) and Tata Steel UK Holdings Limited?s (TSUKH, B3 negative) ratings remain unchanged at this point in time. Although improving, credit metrics have yet to catch up with their respective rating categories," Moodys said in a statement. "We estimate Tata Steel?s consolidated adjusted leverage of 7.9x as of December 2016, continuing to decline from 14.5x as of March 2016 and 10.2x as of September 2016. We expect that Tata Steel?s consolidated earnings will continue to improve, such that leverage will fall towards 7.0x by March 2017, and approach 6.0x over the next 6-9 months," the statement said.
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