Suzlon Energy Net Falls on Cracked Blades, Currency

June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Suzlon Energy Ltd., India’s biggest maker of wind-turbine generators, said fiscal fourth-quarter profit fell 10 percent because of the replacement of defective blades and losses from currency options.

Net income declined to 4.1 billion rupees ($85 million) in the three months ended March 31 from 4.6 billion rupees a year earlier, the Ahmedabad-based company said in a statement on its Web site today. Revenue rose 86 percent to 92.1 billion rupees.

Suzlon lost sales last year after some blades supplied by the company cracked and customers in the U.S. canceled orders. The replacements for customers will be completed in mid-August, two months behind schedule, the company said today.

“We don’t expect any more provisioning for the blade retrofit program,” Sumant Sinha, chief operating officer, told reporters in Mumbai today. “We had to hedge to protect our inflows. We had based our calculations on the basis of a strengthening rupee but it went the other way.”

Suzlon shares gained 5 percent to 123.50 rupees in Mumbai trading on June 26. The stock fell 84 percent last year on concern its equipment was faulty.

The Indian rupee fell 21 percent against the dollar in the 12 months to March 31, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Cracked Blades

The company had set aside 1 billion rupees on its blade replacement plan and 1.4 billion rupees on mark-to-market losses on foreign exchange contracts in the fiscal fourth quarter. That compares with 1.8 billion rupees for the replacement and a loss of 230 million rupees on foreign-exchange bets a year earlier.

Revenue will remain “flat” this year, Sinha said.

“The company received some orders and expects some more,” Chintan Mewar, an analyst at Finquest Securities who has an “outperform” rating on the stock, said before the earnings announcement. “That doesn’t solve the problem as it needs a substantial order flow. Orders from the U.S. and India are important.”

Suzlon completed the acquisition of Hamburg-based Repower Systems AG on June 6 after the founders, Chairman Tulsi Tanti’s family, sold 4 percent of the company’s equity on May 25 to help raise funds to buy the stake from Portugal’s Martifer SGPS SA. The company now owns 91 percent of Repower.