Suzlon's net loss widens to Rs 1,912 crore in Q4
Wind turbine maker Suzlon Group's net loss widened to Rs 1,912.72 crore during the quarter ended March, 2013 due to non-routine costs.
The company had posted a net loss of Rs 300.24 crore in the same quarter of the year-ago period.
Total income of the company fell 36.37 per cent to Rs 4,336.44 crore from Rs 6,815.15 crore.
"This has been a very disappointing quarter. We faced both significant internal challenges on the liability management front, and externally with a highly competitive global wind sector," said Kirti Vagadia, group head of finance at Suzlon.
For the full year, Suzlon reported a net loss of Rs 4,723.96 crore against a net loss of Rs 478.58 crore in the year ago.
Total income for the year declined to Rs 18,913.53 crore from Rs 21,359.21 crore in FY12.
The incomes were impacted by non-routine costs, including foreign exchange losses, asset impairments and tax credit reversals totalling around Rs 1,100 crore, he said.
"The year FY13 presented us with a textbook conflict in allocation of resources, between our business needs and those of our liabilities...While we made significant progress, under project transformation, in streamlining the organisation over the year by reducing head-count at Suzlon Wind by nearly 2,000 positions, improving business efficiency, and in liability management, the impact of this has been a very low volume of execution, along with the resultant non-routine costs," Mr Vagadia said.
He further said that delays in execution have also led to the cancellation of a small number of orders, totalling 195 MW.
"However with a steady intake of new orders, our order book position remains net positive, giving us solid order coverage over the mid-term. This strengthens our position for FY14," he said.
Suzlon's subsidiary REpower, on the other hand, continued to outperform the industry by posting revenues of 2.22 billion euros for FY13 against 1.67 billion euros for FY12.
During the year, Suzlon completed a package of measures under its $1.8-billion corporate debt restructuring (CDR) programme.
Suzlon also successfully refinanced near-term foreign currency dues out of a $647 million bond, backed by an SBI standby letter of credit (SBLC), and a five-year maturity.
"We embark into FY14 with additional working capital support, a leaner workforce, lower fixed costs, and a more efficient cash cycle. While the market environment continues to remain extremely challenging, we are positioning the business to take advantage of the market recovery, which is independently projected for 2014", Mr Vagadia said.
In a related development, the board of directors approved an omnibus resolution for issuance of equity or other equity-linked instruments to the extent of Rs 5,000 crore, subject to the approval of shareholders. This is an enabling resolution that allows the company to raise funds if needed.
Shares in Suzlon, nearly 30 per cent down so far this year, ended 0.76 per cent lower at Rs 13.04 on BSE.
