The Hindu : Pokarna Granites to expand, diversify

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

Business

Business

Pokarna Granites to expand, diversify

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERBAAD SEPT. 6. Pokarna Granites has planned to expand its granite division and diversify into garments by setting up a manufacturing unit, as a division, involving an investment of Rs. 35 crores in both segments. In keeping with the developments, the company will be rechristened `Pokarna Limited'.

The directors have recommended an interim dividend of 15 per cent for the current financial year. M. Yugandhar of Karvy Consultants and T. V. Chowdary, a mining expert, have been inducted to the board to comply with the new norms of corporate governance relating to independent directors.

Addressing a press conference at the factory 35 km near Hyderabad, Gautham Chand Jain, Chairman and Krishna Rao, Managing Director, said Rs. 13 crores was infused in the first phase into a sick granite unit acquired from IDBI for Rs. 7.50 crores, and another Rs. 12 crores would be invested to raise the capacity (it has a second unit at another location) to 3 lakh sq mts slabs and 1 lakh sq mts of tiles annually by January next.

The company has acquired land in Government Apparel Park at Gundlapochampally near here, to set up the garments unit with an investment of Rs. 10 crores with a capacity to 1500 garments a day in the first phase by March 2003. Raymonds has assured to buyback one third of the production. The core promoters of Pokarna have been the distributors for Raymonds for 30 years and they do designing also. The company is looking at marketing formal wear under its own brand name, as also going into the designer segment, they said.

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