Alkali Metals Limited, a Hyderabad-based manufacturer of fine chemicals, is entering the capital markets with an initial public offering of 2.55 million equity shares. The company would use the proceeds to enter the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) segment.
The issue, comprising 25.04 per cent of fully diluted capital, will open on October 7 and closes October 10, 2008. The price band has been fixed at Rs 90 at the lower end and Rs 105 at the upper end per equity share of Rs 10.
Addressing mediapersons here on Monday, YSR Venkata Rao, managing director of Alkali Metals, said the company intended to utilise the net proceeds of the issue to part finance its expansion plan involving setting up a Rs 38.7-crore API facility at the Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in Visakhapatnam.
“We have acquired 16.42 acre at the Pharma City, and work on the API facility has already commenced. The facility, which will have an installed capacity of 672 tonne a year, is expected to go on stream by March 31, 2009,” Rao said.
The company, which was incorporated in 1968 as a joint venture with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APDIC) for the production of sodium metals with an installed capacity of 125 tonne per year, currently has two manufacturing facilities near Hyderabad.
The first facility at Uppal is engaged in the manufacture of sodium metals, organo alkali metallics, tetrazoles and amino pyridines for the domestic market, while the second plant at Dommara Pochampally is a 100 per cent export-oriented unit manufacturing pyridine derivatives, cyclic compounds and fine chemicals. The units have a combined capacity of 4,400 tonne a year.
Alkali Metals clocked a net profit of Rs 7.9 crore on a total income of Rs 65.3 crore last year. During the first four months of the current fiscal ended July 31, 2008, its total income stood at Rs 25.3 crore.