14th May 2015 06:52
LONDON (Alliance News) - Vedanta Resources PLC Thursday posted a massive net loss for its last financial year as it booked a USD4.5 billion impairment to reflect the fall in commodity prices, mainly the oil price, and it said it had moved to cut costs and re-phase its capital expenditure plans to cope with the downturn.
The India-Focused metals miner and oil producer reported a net loss of USD1.80 billion for the 12 months to end-March compared with a loss of USD196.0 million a year earlier, while the loss from continuing operations was USD3.79 billion compared with a profit of USD989.4 million.
Excluding the writedown, it posted a profit from continuing operations of USD751.4 million, down from USD1.10 billion a year earlier, as revenue declined to USD12.88 billion from USD12.95 billion, hit by the decline in oil and iron ore prices in particular. Zinc and aluminium prices were "relatively" more resilient.
"We have taken actions to maintain financial strength and flexibility during this period of weak commodity prices through re-phasing of our capex plans, and cost management initiatives. We are focussed on realising the full potential of our long-life, tier-one assets and simplifying our group structure to generate superior returns for our shareholders in a sustainable manner," Chairman Anil Agarwal said in a statement.
The chairman said he and new Chief Executive Tom Albanese will be putting greater focus on simplification over the next year.
"There is much to do on the operational front in Financial Year 2016; to move aluminium above its current operating level of 38% capacity, secure a local source of bauxite for our refineries and smelters, stabilise KCM, restart iron ore mining in Goa, and ensure our Oil & Gas business is positioned for robust performance notwithstanding weak oil prices. We need to continue strengthening our balance sheet through further deleveraging and delivering a simpler corporate structure," the company said.
"We will continue to have a relentless focus on costs alongside rising capacity utilisation thus driving value growth. Looking forward over the next few years, we expect the worst of the sector oversupply to be behind us and Vedanta will be well placed to take advantage of future growth in India and globally, as a premier developer and innovator of choice," it added.
Vedanta said it had cut its gross debt by USD0.2 billion in the last financial year to USD16.7 billion, although net debt rose USD0.5 billion to USD8.5 billion as it increased its stake in subsidiaries Vedanta Ltd and Cairn India Ltd.
Despite this, it raised its total dividend for the year to 63.0 cents a share, from 61.0 cents a year earlier. The final dividend is 40 cents.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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