Welspun Corp to fully retire debt by March

Welspun Corp, the flagship company of Welspun Group, is hopeful to become debt-free this fiscal year itself as against its earlier target of 2020, a senior company official has said. Welspun Corp manufactures pipes that caters to sectors like oil and gas and water resource management, and has managed to reduce its debt by Rs 685 crore in FY18. "We are on track on reducing our debt. We managed to retire a significant amount of debt last fiscal year and we are hopeful that we will be debt-free this year itself, ahead of our earlier target of FY20," managing director and chief executive Vipul Mathur told PTI here.

Its net debt as of March 2018 stood at Rs 422 crore while it had bank balances and cash reserves to the tune of Rs 965 crore, he said. "Reduction in debt was a result of our prudent financial management. Weve been diligent around that," Mathur said. He further said the company also has enough orders that gives it a visibility of strong revenue growth. "After a period of slowdown, our businesses in all three geographies, including the US which is our largest market, Saudi Arabia and India, have now picked up.

"We have a healthy order pipeline of 1.65 million tonne to be executed over the next one to two years. We are hopeful that such growth will continue and we will bag significant orders in the coming years," he said. Mathur further said he expects good order inflows to continue in FY19 on account of high energy prices, expansion of national gas grid in India and several water projects being planned in India and Saudi Arabia. "We are also evaluating various options of greenfield and brownfield expansion. Our due diligence is going on and we are looking at various options," he added.