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Informist, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026

By Sunil Raghu and Shweta

AHMEDABAD/MUMBAI – Hindalco Industries Ltd. plans to infuse a total of $1 billion as equity share into US-based subsidiary Novelis through its AV Minerals (Netherlands) N.V., the company management said in its post December quarter earnings press conference Thursday.

Earlier, Hindalco was to infuse $750 million into Novelis by subscribing to 5 million common shares at $150 each. The equity infusion was to strengthen Novelis' balance sheet and support US subsidiary's projects and manage debt following operational impact from fire at its Oswego facility.

"...this is going to help them during the next six to eight months, as they come out of the heat of fire, their working capital requirements, cost to serve. And we think that that will be enough because, as I said, the positive story here is the mill will be restarting in June. So based on that, we think that they should be OK with this one-time equity infusion of a billion dollars that we are doing," Satish Pai, managing director of Hindalco Industries, told reporters.

Novelis' Oswego plant was hit by fire accidents twice in 2025, once in September and then in November, which led to disruption in production and hindered supply to customers. It hit the earnings of the US-based arm in the quarter ended December, alongside US tariffs. The arm reported a net loss of $160 million against an income of $110 million a year ago, hit hard by $327 million in pre-tax losses related to the fires. The company's net sales increased marginally on year to $4.19 billion. 

Hindalco management Thursday said that their talks with the insurance firms were going "extremely well" and they were hopeful of recovering 70-80% of Oswego fire losses. "We have already got 50 million ($50 million). There are no negative suprises there," Pai said.

Hindalco Industries Ltd.'s consolidated net profit for the December quarter fell sharply year on year due to a one-time charge related to the fire at Novelis' Oswego plant in the US. The Aditya Birla Group's flagship metals company reported a consolidated net profit of INR 20.49 billion for the December quarter, down 45% on year from INR 37.35 billion. The profit was also well below analysts' expectation of INR 42.45 billion. Excluding the one-time cost of INR 26.10 billion due to the fire at the Oswego plant in New York, the consolidated net profit of the company would be INR 46.59 billion, comfortably above the Street' estimate.

The management said that the impact of Novelis fire would continue to be felt in March quarter too. He, however, was of the view that India operations would continue to outperform. "The aluminium prices are extremely strong because, you know, all commodity prices, copper, etc. are holding up very well. So we are, from an India performance, we should be seeing an extremely strong Q4," Pai told reporters.

On being asked whether Hindalco, too, was interested in entering nuclear energy segment, as India opens it up for the private sector, Hindalco said it was still watchful. "I think it's a little bit early because right now we will have to look at various technology providers," Pai said. He said the company was more interested to look at small modular reactor as part of the "larger decarbonisation" trend.

Thursday, shares of Hindalco ended at INR 964.40 on the National Stock Exchange, down 0.2%.  End

US$1 = INR 90.59

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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