CHENNAI: Commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland said on Wednesday that it will bring down its debt-equity ratio to 1:1 by the end of the fiscal. It is also confident of outperforming the industry’s targeted growth of 10 per cent for this fiscal.
Vinod K Dasari, Managing Director of ALL, said that the company’s debt restructuring programme is on track and it would have achieved its target of bringing down the debt-equity ratio to 1:1 by the end of March 31, 2015. The company had a peak debt of around Rs.6,200 crore in August 2013.
Since then, however, the company has sold some of its non-core assets, raised money through QIP and initiated several cost control measures including reducing manpower and inventory levels. The company has managed to reduce its debt to Rs.4,323 crore as on September and would have achieved the target of 1:1 by the end of the fiscal.
“We are trying to avoid short-term debt so that cost of debt will be lower,” he added.
The commercial vehicle major is also confident of posting a growth of more than the industry target. According to Dasari, the company is hoping that the fourth quarter would be better on the back of the improving economic scenario.
“The demand for tanker, from cement industry and white good industries has seen good improvement. Besides, ALL’s strong hold of southern market is also coming back,” said Dasari.