Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys (IMFA) has approved a bonus issue in a 1:1 ratio. The prices of the alloy ferrochrome have moved from roughly Rs 90,000 in the first quarter to around Rs 1,03,000 in the second quarter and have firmed up a bit in the third quarter as well.

Subhrakant Panda, Managing Director at IMFA commented about the outlook on ferrochrome prices for the second half of this year. “They (prices of ferrochrome) have substantially firmed up in the third quarter, which is ongoing, and we are actually about Rs 1,20,000 plus, and I see that continuing for the remainder of the financial year as well.”

He added that this has resulted in a very strong performance., IMFA’s EBITDA for H1 was a little more than Rs 410 or 415 crore and for the remainder of the year, the firm is looking at the same level of performance as in Q2, or better than that.

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Speaking about debt, Panda said the company’s priorities are very clear—pare down debt, reward shareholders, and build up a kitty for expansion. At the end of Q2, the firms had prepaid about Rs 45 crores of debt and declared the Rs 5 per share interim dividend, he said.

“Besides today's announcement of a 1:1 bonus issue, we are also going to prepay about Rs 120 crore of debt before the end of the quarter, and that will make us effectively net debt-free,” he added.

According to Panda, the idea is to become debt-free by the next quarter. Moreover, the company is building a kitty to take up 100,000 tonne per annum expansion project at Kalinganagar, he added.

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