Hindalco net debt negative in India; in Q2, EBITDA per tonne to come in a bit lower than in Q1: Satish Pai

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Satish Pai, MD, Hindalco, says this quarter the sales were much higher than expected. The demand was very strong, and operational efficiencies were good. The company got a higher number, but there was also some amount of hedge accounting noise that came in, which can always go either way. So, on a consistent onward-going basis, Hindalco will stick with the Rs 600 crore guidance.

Further, in India, Hindalco is net debt negative. The gross debt in India is around Rs 8,000 crore. The company does not have any plans to reduce that anymore. In Novelis, once the Bay Minette project is over, they will be back to normal two-and-a-half type of net debt to EBITDA rates.
While Q1 revenue growth was largely in line with the guidance that you had earlier stated, given the recent fall in metal prices that we have seen recently, are you confident of achieving, let us say, 6% to 8% top-line growth guidance that you had given at the start of the year?
Satish Pai: So, I think that honestly in our commodity type of business, we are more interested in growing the EBITDA than the top line. So, if you look at it, this quarter our consolidated EBITDA of Rs 7,992 crore was up 31% year-on-year. Our focus is on profitability and margins more than just trying to grow the top line because the top line in a commodity business is very much driven by the price of aluminium and copper, which is not really in our control. So, what we try to focus on is the profitability.

The copper business numbers were at an all-time high. EBITDA has come at Rs