Indian ratings agency Crisil Ratings has revised its outlook for India’s Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) to ‘positive’ from ‘stable’ and has upgraded the company’s long-term rating for bank facilities to 'CRISIL A+' from 'CRISIL A-', a company official said on Thursday, September 16.
Crisil Rating in a report on the company said that the upgrade reflected the stronger than expected operating performance of JSPL and expectations of faster deleveraging.
Consolidated financial leverage (ratio of consolidated net debt to EBITDA) is expected to be below 1.5 times in the fiscal year 2021-22 against earlier expectations of below 2.0 times, driven by the improved operating profitability outlook due to healthy steel demand and higher prices.
The announced capacity expansion plan of 6 million mt per year at Angul, Odisha will not make any material increase in JSPL's consolidated leverage as the increase in project debt will be offset by debt repayments at JSPL.
While JSPL's management has demonstrated its ability to set up large steel plants in past years, the timely completion of the upcoming expansion project without any cost overrun and the successful ramping up of operations will remain to be monitored, Crisil said.