Tata Steel appoints Price Waterhouse as auditor

Shareholders pass resolution to appoint Deepak Kapoor as independent director

A Tata Steel release to the stock exchanges on Wednesday said the shareholders of the company passed resolutions at the annual general meeting (AGM) appointing Price Waterhouse & Co as the company’s statutory auditor and Deepak Kapoor as independent director. 
About 99.99 per cent of the shareholders voted in favour of appointing Price Waterhouse, while 99.81 per cent were in favour of appointing Kapoor as an independent director.

 
Kapoor retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers in December last year.
 
Tata Steel shareholders also appointed Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran as director on the board. Chandrasekaran is also chairman of Tata Steel.
 
Shareholders also approved of a non-convertible debentures issue by private placement not exceeding Rs 10,000 crore.
 
Among other resolutions passed at the AGM include the re-appointment of Dinesh Kumar Mehrotra and Koushik Chatterjee as directors. Chatterjee is group executive director (finance, corporate and Europe). Petrus Blauwhoff and Aman Mehta were also appointed as independent directors.
 
On Wednesday, S&P Global Ratings said that the positive performance by Tata Steel during the first quarter was on expected lines and profitability would be sustained in the current financial year.
 
“The healthy profitability at India-based Tata Steel (BB-/stable) is in line with our expectations and supports the company’s credit quality,” it said. A rating of BB points to less vulnerability of default. The agency has put down the sustained profitability to stronger global steel prices.
 
“We expect Tata Steel’s profitability in India and Europe to sustain for the rest of fiscal 2018, barring seasonal variations and despite potentially lower demand in India. The progress in restructuring Tata Steel’s European operations and the company’s new capital expenditure decisions will drive its consolidated financial health and our ratings,” it said.