Diversified business conglomerate Murugappa Group today announced its proposal to make a capital expenditure of Rs 1,500 crore during 2011-12, as part of reaching its goal of becoming a $7.1 billion company.
The Chennai-based group valued at $3.8 billion has 29 businesses across various sectors.
"We are planning capital expenditure of Rs 1,500 crore and this will be largely going into (Group entities) Carborandum Universal and Tube Investments," Murugappa Group Executive Chairman A Vellayan told reporters here.
"With this we are set to achieve our vision of becoming a $7.2 billion company in 2013-14," he said.
Giving a break up, he said Rs 500 crore each would be invested in Carborandum Universal and Tube Investments and another Rs 500 crore in other businesses.
Stating that their company witnessed a growth of 25% (2010-11) compared to previous financial year (2009-10), he said for the current financial year they are expecting a growth of 25-30%.
Also Read
"Next year we are looking at 25-30% growth in terms of turnover...," he said.
On the group revenue, he said it stood at Rs 17,000 crore up by 25% over the previous year.
"The key businesses like Carborundum Universal, Tube Investments, TI Cycles, Chola (MS General Insurance) have reported their best ever performance last year. The star performer of the year would be our group firm Chola DBS.
"They totally ended the year with a clean book particularly in turning the profits," Vellayan said.
On future plans, Vellayan said the joint venture plant being set up by Coromandel International, Groupe Chimique Tunisian of Tunisia and Gujarat Fertiliser Corporation (GFC) would be commissioned by end of August. The plant was 95% ready.
"The plant would be commissioned in end of August. We expect it will commence production in the first week of September," he said.
Coromandel International has tied-up with the GFC to manufacture phosphoric acid at the Tunisian plant.
"We expect the plant would have a capacity of producing 400,000 tonnes of phosphoric acid. 200,000 tonnes will be handled by Coromandel International, while 200,000 tonnes will be with GFC," he said.
The value of the project was estimated to be around $180 million.
Commenting about their financial services division, company Director-Finance N Srinivasan said they had planned to do a pilot launch of offering gold loans in 50 branches of Cholamandalam MS General Insurance.
"The test launch will be done in second quarter of this year," he said.
To a query on their formal foray into the Chinese market, Vellayan said they would enter only with large projects.
"When we entered there (earlier), we were not successful and brought all our machineries to Chennai. If we are entering into China again, it will be only with large projects," he said.
He said they had planned to ramp up the number of Mana Gromor Centres retail shops catering to the farming community from 432 to over 1,000 shops by 2012-13 covering all the four southern states.