Even as it considers an acquisition proposal, Berger Paints India (BPIL) is rapidly completing a slew of greenfield and brownfield projects which will double its capacity by 2015, besides enabling it to set up its biggest capacity within two years. It is also planning to revive the proposal to set up an automotive paint unit at Jejuri near Pune in Maharashtra.
Company Chairman Kuldip Singh Dhingra told reporters after the annual meeting that the directors would be “apprised of an acquisition proposal” that has been received by the company. He evaded further queries in this regard merely saying that it is a south-Asian company operating in the speciality paints segment. The BPIL board met on Thursday to consider the quarterly results which turned out to be good.
Mr. Dhingra said the company would favour takeover of high-growth companies and had also checked out overseas companies. To a question on the size, he said that “money is not a problem and Berger had the ability to buy a bigger company.” In respect of the company now being scanned, he said that the proposal was received around eight months earlier.
On the investment plans, he said Rs. 250 crore would be invested by 2015 to double capacity to five lakh tonne. This includes a Rs. 125-crore spend on setting up a water-based paint unit in Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh. With a 1.50-lakh tonne capacity, this plant, coming up 100 km north of Bangalore, would be the company's largest, using state-of-the-art technology with fully-automated operations. “There would be very few workers”, Mr. Dhingra earlier told the shareholders. Around 48 acres were already in possession and another 35 acres were to be acquired for a processing unit to be set up by BP Coating, a division of BPIL.
This apart, expansions are also on anvil at the water-based plants in West Bengal and Goa, the powder coating plant in Jammu. BPIL is also planning a resin manufacturing unit in Goa.
On its proposed investment on a third facility for an automotive paints unit in Pune (one each existing in West Bengal and Jammu), Mr. Dhingra said a Rs. 50-crore investment would be required for setting up a 50,000-tonne plant on a 20-acre plot that the company had. All other approvals were in place for the project which was shelved in the aftermath of the meltdown.
