Tata Steel expects the European business to perform ‘‘significantly better’’ in FY25 on the back of improved performance from the Netherlands and cutting back on losses from the UK.

The company is hoping the Dutch business will become EBIDTA positive once the realigned blast furnace is pressed into production from next week. EBITDA is the acronym for earning before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation.

It also anticipates that operations in the UK, where BFs will be closed down phase-wise in FY25, will halve the losses.

“Next year is looking to be significantly better in terms of international operations, reducing losses in the UK and improving in the Netherlands,” Koushik Chatterjee, executive director & CFO of Tata Steel, disclosed in a call with the analysts on Thursday.

The company returned to black in Q3FY24 with a Rs 522-crore profit even as the profits from the structurally strong Indian business were eaten away by weak European operations.

During the call, analysts sought answers from the management about the health of the Dutch business as the company started reporting financials separately from the UK.

T.V. Narendran, managing director and CEO of Tata Steel, informed that realigning of BF, which has ‘‘struggled a bit’’ in the last few years in the Netherlands is ‘‘more or less complete’’ and the company expects production to rise.

“Netherlands has traditionally produced 6.1 million tonnes (mt) a year for the last few years. (We) plan is to take it to 6.5-7 mt a year,” Narendran said, adding the Dutch business, centred in Ijmuiden, would benefit from higher steel production and lower energy costs.

The UK operations, where it plans to build a 3 million tonne electric arc furnace, also expect to perform better on the back of lower energy costs. Moreover, steel spot prices are on the rise in Europe in the aftermath of the Red Sea crisis. The UK business is likely to be a beneficiary.

In India, the company expects additional volume from the 5 million-tonne Kalinganagar expansion to kick in from the next fiscal. It is hoping to clock an additional 0.5mt sales in the fourth quarter.

US clocks 3.3% growth

New York: The US economy continued to grow at a healthy pace at the end of 2023, capping a year in which unemployment remained low, inflation cooled and a widely predicted recession never materialized.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 3.3 per cent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the US commerce department said on Thursday.

That was down from the 4.9 per cent rate in the third quarter but nonetheless showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s economic upheaval.

The latest reading is preliminary and may be revised in the months ahead.

Growth accelerated for the full year, measured from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023. GDP. grew 3.1 per cent, up from less than 1 per cent and faster than in any of the five years preceding the pandemic.

NYTNS