Suzlon Q3 net loss widens to Rs 1,154 crore

Wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy today reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 1,154.53 crore in the third quarter ended December 2012. The company had reported a net loss of Rs 286.46 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal year.

Its revenues contracted to Rs 4,013.66 crore during the quarter against Rs 4,985.79 crore in the year-ago period. "While we made tremendous progress on the liability management front, our business erformance has been adversely hit due to abnormal operating environment, leading to a significant loss for the quarter," Suzlon Group CFO, Kirti Vagadia, said in a statement.

The approval of corporate debt restructuring (CDR) gives the firm headroom to focus on the execution of our order book, maintain and grow our order momentum, and to continue to deliver the right products and services to meet the needs of our global customer base, he said.

Suzlon's domestic lenders, a consortium of 19 banks, approved its CDR package of Rs 9,500 crore on January 24. This includes a two-year moratorium on principal and interest payments on term loans, a three per cent reduction in interest rates, six month moratorium on working capital interest and enhancement of working capital by around Rs 1,800 crore allowing the company to accelerate execution of orders.

During the quarter, the company bagged 1,104 megawatts (MW) orders worth Rs 8,097 crore, taking the total order book at Rs 41,546 crore.

"The long-term fundamentals of the business continue to be strong. Our fleet of over 21,000 MW worldwide continues to deliver industry beating uptime levels. Our order inflows remain strong, with a significant uptick after the approval of our CDR package," he said.

"We have made solid progress under project transformation, and we continue to focus on reducing our opex (operational expenditure) and manpower costs, translating to a lower break-even for the Group going  forward," he said