Tisco planning forays into other businesses

kolkata: tisco managing director b muthuraman on friday said that the company was looking into possibilities of entering into other businesses to beat the slowdown in the steel industry. "world over the the steel industry is unable to return the cost on capital employed and as such we have to think about other businesses to create shareholders value, but the evaluation is not yet complete," he told newsmen here.asked which were the areas tisco was looking into, he said "there are several areas" but declined to specify. the tisco md, however, made it clear that the company would not invest in telecom sector. "tata group is in telecom sector for quite sometime but tisco is not. the company will not invest in this sector", he said referring to such speculation in the media. turning to tisco''s performance, muthuraman said that the company had surpassed all previous records of production. despite sluggish market, the company''s sales during 2001-02 had registered a 4 per cent increase. he said that tisco has chalked out a strategy ''winning in a downturn'' to create shareholders value by next four years (2003-06). the greater part of the strategy evolved around introducing superior product mix by producing more of hr, cr and galvanised sheet,laying stress on market mix, increasing volume, containing cost and improving economic value addition. muthuraman said that tisco is going to increase proportion of branded products, which had shown a growth of 16 per cent last year and would be higher this fiscal. muthuraman said that in 2001-02 tisco''s production of crude steel and saleable steel was up by 5-6 per cent, respectively. to a question, he said that tisco''s expansion plan in jamshedpur has not yet been finalised. ''''we will finalise it in the next few months''''. on the possibilities of merger or acquisition of companies, he said that tata steel was always open to acquisition and mergers for consolidation. he, however, denied having received any offer from financial institutions for acquiring stakes in any loss making steel company. referring to rightsizing of the company, the tata steel md said that tisco had reduced 2,500 workers last year. asked about the target of further reduction of manpower, he said, ''''we have our own internal target, we don''t announce it. the number of workers to be reduced depends on a number of factors. our effort is to continously reduce the man-power and our unions have helped us a lot in this direction." to a querry on the fate of tisco''s ferro chrome project in south africa, muthuraman said that it was on. tisco was waiting for certain clearance from south african government. as soon as it was given, the company will start work, he said. the project which involved an investment of rs 250 crore, would produce 120,000 tonnes of steel. to another question on the company''s gopalpur project, muthraman said that no greenfield project would come up in foreseeable future. tisco would only facilitate orissa government to create a special economic zone in gopalpur and would not get involved in it.