'Tata Steel will return to debt repayment trajectory next year'

Pension adjustments, the need to build stocks in the Netherlands for a maintenance shutdown, and higher coal prices were the three key reasons for the worse-than-expected financial numbers for Tata Steel Ltd in the December quarter, managing director and chief executive T.V. Narendran said. In an interview, Narendran said the worst is over for Europe and India, and adding high steel prices will sustain in the short to medium term. Edited excerpts:

After a challenging December quarter pulled down by the European business, what is the business outlook?

The Indian business today is much bigger than it was before.

When we acquired Corus, Tata Steel India's business was 5

million tonnes (mt), Corus was 18 mt, and Southeast Asia was 2 mt. Out of Europe's 18 mt, 10 mt in the UK proved to be the weakest. Today, we have India business which is 20 mt and is the strongest part of our portfolio, while the weakest part of the portfolio is 3 mt in the UK.