1. At a Glance – PSU Steel, Full Power, Half Returns
Steel Authority of India Ltd, or SAIL for friends and auditors, closed Q3 FY26 with ₹27,371 Cr revenue and ₹374 Cr PAT, while the stock politely hovered around ₹151, reminding everyone that being fully utilised doesn’t automatically mean being fully loved by markets. Market cap stands near ₹62,000+ Cr, promoter (read: Government of India) still chilling at 65%, and capacity utilisation is flirting dangerously close to perfection at 98–99%.
Three-month return is a healthy ~10%, six-month return ~20%, and one-year return a chest-thumping ~41%. But before you start distributing laddoos, ROE is stuck around 4–5%, ROCE around 6–7%, and debt has ballooned to ₹33,663 Cr.
In short: furnaces blazing, volumes flowing, stock behaving, but profitability still wearing PSU handcuffs. Curious why a company producing 19+ MT steel can’t mint money like private peers? Keep reading.
2. Introduction – India’s Steel Backbone With a PSU Spine
SAIL is not just another steel company; it is the steel spine of Indian infrastructure. From railway tracks to metro tunnels, nuclear plants to highways, if India is building something big and boring, SAIL steel is probably inside it.
Five integrated steel plants, three special steel plants, captive iron ore mines, Maharatna badge, and a mandate that often feels like “nation first, margins later.” That sentence alone explains half the valuation discount.
Between FY22 and FY24, sales volumes grew 5%, crude steel production jumped to 19.2 MT, and utilisation went from lazy 80s to near-perfect 99%. But revenues grew just ~2%, because steel prices decided to behave like crypto in reverse. Realisations dropped
from ₹63,875/MT (FY22) to ₹61,987/MT (FY24) and then face-planted to ₹51,059/MT in Q1 FY25.
So yes, SAIL works harder every year. The question is: does it work smarter?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
SAIL digs iron ore, converts it into steel, rolls it into every shape known to engineering textbooks, and sells it mostly within India. Simple, right?
Not quite. SAIL operates across:
- Flat products – HR coils, plates, sheets
- Long products – TMT bars, rods, structurals
- Railway steel – rails, wheels, axles
- Semis & specials – niche grades for defence, power, hydro
Product mix FY24 looks like a thali:
- HR Plates/Coils/Sheets: 27%
- Bars & Rods: 22%
- PM Plates: 14%
- Structurals: 9%
- Semis + Railway: 16%
- Others: 12%
They also launched 25 new value-added products in FY24, pushing VAP contribution to 53% of revenue (up from 51%). Progress? Yes. Enough? Debatable.
If this was a private steelmaker, margins would already be flexing. As a PSU, SAIL prefers stability, employment, and national duty — sometimes at the cost of shareholder sanity.
4. Financials Overview – Volumes Up, Profits Moody
Quarterly Comparison (₹ Cr)
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Q3 FY26) | YoY Qtr | Prev Qtr | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 27,371 | 24,490 | 26,704 | 11.8% | 2.5% |
| EBITDA | 2,294 | 2,030 | 2,528 | 13.0% | -9.2% |
| PAT | 374 | 142 | 419 | 163% | -10.7% |
| EPS (₹) | 0.91 | 0.34 | 1.01 | 168% | -9.9% |
