Stock Report

JSW Steel Achieves Global Investment Grade Status with Moody's Baa3 Rating

Posted On : 2026-08-01 14:10:06( TIMEZONE : IST )

JSW Steel Limited, India's largest steel producer, today said Moody's Ratings has assigned it Baa3 long-term issuer rating with a stable outlook, placing the Company at global investment grade.

Moody's also upgraded JSW Steel's senior unsecured ratings and the guaranteed senior unsecured revenue bonds issued by Jefferson County Port Authority to Baa3 from Ba1, and withdrew the Company's earlier Ba1 corporate family rating.

Moody's cited sustained improvement in JSW Steel's credit profile, anchored in its position as India's largest steel producer with cost-competitive, multi-location operations. The agency also pointed to material debt reduction from the sustained operating & financial performance and recent asset divestment.

The rating action also reflects the meaningful expansion in JSW Steel's operating scale over the past few years, which Moody's said has reinforced its position as India's largest steel producer. The agency expects the ramp-up of recently completed projects at Vijayanagar together with commissioning of Dolvi phase 3 next year to drive higher earnings and support sustained improvement in credit metrics. The stable outlook further reflects Moody's expectation that JSW Steel will implement its growth plans with financial discipline, while proactively managing the refinancing of its debt obligations.

The Company's financial profile strengthened materially, with net debt reduced from ₹76,563 crore as of March 31, 2025 to ₹46,157 crore as of June 30, 2026 - a reduction of over ₹30,000 crore in fifteen months. This translated into Net Debt/EBITDA improving to 1.81x by March 2026 and further to 1.46x by June 2026, from 3.34x as of March 31, 2025.

The Baa3 rating follows a broader re-rating of JSW Steel over the past month: Fitch upgraded the Company to 'BB+' from 'BB' with a Positive outlook (July 6), CARE Ratings upgraded it to CARE AA+ from CARE AA (July 8), and ICRA upgraded it to [ICRA]AA+ from [ICRA]AA (July 30) - together marking a comprehensive endorsement of JSW Steel's deleveraging and financial discipline.

Mr. Jayant Acharya, Joint Managing Director & CEO, JSW Steel Limited, said: "This rating is a recognition of the strength and resilience of JSW Steel's business - our scale as India's largest steel producer, our cost-competitive operations across multiple locations, and the quality of assets we have built over the years. India is the world's second-largest steel market, and with steel demand expected to grow steadily through the decade on the back of infrastructure, construction and industrial activity, we are well placed to capture that growth. Our expansion at Vijayanagar and the upcoming capacity at Dolvi, together with our partnerships with JFE and POSCO, position us to serve this demand while continuing to move up the value chain. Global investment grade strengthens our access to international capital markets on more competitive terms. It also affirms the confidence that customers, partners and investors worldwide place in JSW Steel."

Commenting on the rating action, Mr. Swayam Saurabh, Chief Financial Officer, JSW Steel Limited, said: "This rating is a validation of the discipline this organization has practiced through a full business cycle, not just of the numbers on our balance sheet. Over the last few years, we made a conscious shift towards sharper capital allocation - being more selective about where we deploy capital, more deliberate about the pace of our growth while managing key financial ratios across cycles. A stronger balance sheet and a meaningfully optimized cost of borrowing are the tangible outcomes, and together they give us real firepower to fund our growth programme on better terms and with a greater confidence. Global investment grade does not change our ambition; it gives us a stronger, more efficient base to pursue it from here on."

JSW Steel had crude steel capacity of 31.9 MTPA in India as of March 31, 2026, across Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh. Including joint ventures, the Company's steelmaking capacity in India stood at 36.4 MTPA. Over the past two years, the Company expanded capacity by around 25% through the commissioning of a new 5 MTPA brownfield plant & a 1.5 MTPA debottlenecking project at Vijayanagar, with a further 5 MTPA expansion at Dolvi scheduled for commissioning in FY2027-28.

Shares of JSW Steel Limited was last trading in BSE at Rs. 1270.55 as compared to the previous close of Rs. 1271.00. The total number of shares traded during the day was 95356 in over 3503 trades.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs. 1282.30 and intraday low of 1262.40. The net turnover during the day was Rs. 121067684.00.