 "Emami to invest Rs 1,000 crore in cement, hospital biz in Bengal")
The health care facility is yet to see the light of the day. Speaking to media persons after the annual general meeting of Emami Ltd, Aditya Agarwal, director, said, the location was being finalised for cement plant in West Bengal and another 450-500 bed hospital would be built on the city fringes in Rajarhat.
"We are setting up a cement plant. Land requirement is not huge, we have two options to choose from as we are looking at Purulia and Mejia. The hospital will also see an investment of about Rs 500 crore,” he said on the sidelines of the AGM here on Wednesday. The clinker for the facility will come from Chattisgarh, said Agarwal.
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The investment can be taken as a ressurection of faith in Bengal from the Emami promoters. After the incident, three of the firm’s board members who were also directors of AMRI R S Agarwal,R S Goenka and S K Todi were arrested and the police was on the lookout for two other directors, Aditya Agarwal and Preeti Sureka. AMRI Hospitals is co-owned by S.K. Todi’s Shrachi Group and the families of his old friends R S Goenka and R.S. Agarwal. The Goenkas and Agarwals together own Emami.
The equation between the Agarwals and the present state government appear to have eased to some extent as both the parties are now seen sharing public space, like chamber meetings. When asked about the brand identity of the planned hospital Agarwal said it was yet to be decided.
On the FMCG business, Emami director Harsh Agarwal said the company was evaluating opportunities to enter the household segments while keeping its primary focus on personal care and health care segment intact.
"Emami's focus will be health care and personal care, but apart from that we are evaluating few more category like household...household as in mosquito coils etc..,” he said by adding that FMCG major was in talks with few companies for acquistions in the health care and personal care segment.
"Healthcare category has a lot of opportunity..Zandu has strong brand equity so we want to exploit it to the full. Some brand extension of Zandu can be done,” he added.
The FMCG major plans to continue its investment in brands and it has set aside Rs 100 crore for its capex this year which would see a manufacturing unit coming in Assam. Last year Emami invested Rs 286 crore in its brands.
Meanwhile the company reported a net profit of Rs 60.67 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal as against Rs 46.61 crore, showing a growth of 30.17%. Net sales for the quarter under review jumped by 13.23% to Rs 383.65 crore. After the announcement of results, Emami scrip fell by over five% to Rs 439.45 on BSE.