Steel Authority of India Share Price

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is one of the largest steel-making companies in India and one of the maharatnas among the country’s central public sector enterprises. The company manufactures and sells a broad range of steel products like hot and cold rolled sheets and coils, galvanised sheets, electrical sheets, structurals, railway products, plates, bars and rods, stainless steel and other alloy steels.

The Government of India owns about 65% of SAIL’s equity and retains voting control of the company. Besides that, as of March 2023, institutional investors held around 17% stake in the company, while the retail shareholding stood at just over 15%.

The company’s market capitalisation stood at more than ₹42,000 crore as of December 12, 2023. SAIL share price has surged more than 76% in the last three years.

SAIL traces its origin to the formative years of India after Independence. When the builders of modern India were working towards laying the infrastructure for rapid industrialisation of the country, the focus turned towards the steel sector to propel economic growth. As a result, Hindustan Steel Ltd (HSL) was set up on January 19, 1954.

In 1972, a policy statement was drafted by the Ministry Of Steel And Mines to develop a new model for managing the steel industry. The policy statement was presented to the Parliament on December 2, 1972. It proposed creating a holding company to manage inputs and outputs under one umbrella. This led to the establishment of Steel Authority of India Ltd. The company was incorporated on January 24, 1973, with an authorised capital of ₹2,000 crore.

SAIL business segments

SAIL produces iron and steel at five integrated plants and three special steel plants, located principally in the eastern and central regions of India and situated close to domestic sources of raw materials.

The five integrated plants include the Bhilai Steel Plant (Chhattisgarh), the Durgapur Steel Plant (West Bengal), the Rourkela Steel Plant (Odisha), the Bokaro Steel Plant (Jharkhand) and the IISCO Steel Plant (West Bengal), while the special steel plants include the Salem Steel Plant (Tamil Nadu), the Alloy Steels Plant (West Bengal) and the Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (Karnataka).

The company also operates the Chandrapur Ferro Alloy Plant in Maharashtra that manufactures high/medium/low carbon ferro-manganese and silico-manganese.

SAIL also has under its umbrella one wholly owned subsidiary called SAIL Refractory Company Limited (SRCL) that is involved in the manufacturing of high-quality basic refractory of the modern steel plants, copper, cement and glass industries. It is located in Salem, Tamil Nadu.

Besides that, SAIL has a well-equipped Research and Development Centre for Iron and Steel (RDCIS) at Ranchi which helps to produce quality steel and develop new technologies for the steel industry. The company has its own in-house Centre for Engineering and Technology (CET), Management Training Institute (MTI) and Safety Organisation at Ranchi.

SAIL financial highlights

Despite a challenging year, SAIL registered its best-ever production and sales performance during the financial year 2022-23. However, profitability was severely impacted due to high input costs, majorly that of imported coking coal and foreign exchange variation loss.

Total income in FY23 stood at ₹1,05,792 crore compared with Rs 1,04,515 crore in FY22. In FY23, the sales turnover of ₹1,03,768 crore was the best-ever, outperforming the previous best of ₹1,02,805 crore in the previous financial year. Profit after tax (PAT) stood at ₹1,903 crore in FY23 compared with ₹12,015 crore in FY22. Capex of ₹5,474 crore was achieved during FY23. The net worth of the company increased to ₹52,139 crore as on March 31, 2023, from ₹52,017 crore as on March 31, 2022. The company paid a total dividend of 15% i.e. ₹1.5 per equity share of face value of ₹10 each during FY23. In FY23, the company produced the highest ever hot metal, crude steel as well as saleable steel. For FY24, SAIL has set a target of 15% increase in steel sales to 18.7 million tonnes compared with sales volumes of 16.3 million tonnes seen in FY23.