Quiet buzz around Hindalco

There is a quiet buzz around Hindalco Industries with the stock price going up to Rs.251, which is some Rs.4 short from its 52-week high of Rs.255.35.

At the AGM held yesterday in Mumbai, Kumar Mangalam Birla told shareholders that the company plans to prepay another Rs 1,100-crore debt this month to further deleverage its balance sheet.

This is expected to save the company Rs.800 crore as interest cost in current fiscal.

At the AGM, Birla said that Hindalco had raised $500 million via qualified institutional placement (QIP) and coupled with the treasury balance, it pre-payed existing borrowings. Consequently, there is a substantial improvement in consolidated net debt to EBITDA. Its overseas subsidiary Novelis also refinanced $4.3 billion of its long term debt and the annual cash interest expense stands reduced by $79 million.