S Kalyana Ramanathan: Spinning new success

BACKSTAGE

Mukund Choudhary, managing director, Spentex Industries Ltd (part of CLC Group ), confesses that he is really in a hurry. A few days short of 35 years, he is already heading the country's third largest yarn spinning company, and is the father of three children.

Choudhary masterminded two major acquisitions towards the end of February 2006, which saw his group's spindle capacity increase to 360,000 from 205,000. These two deals pushed Spentex to the number three position in the country, next only to Vardaman and Nahar Spinning. Between February 18 and 28, Spentex bought controlling stakes in the Delhi-based Indo-Rama Textiles and the Kolhapur-based Amit Spinning Industries, the consolidated value of which was around Rs 145 crore.

This is just the beginning, says Choudhary. How far is he from taking the number one place? "We are eyeing more acquisitions that may possibly come from Russia and South America by end of this calendar year," he asserts. He, however, refrains from talking about Spentex's position after these deals and stops a few inches short of hinting that his company will be the largest in the country.

Mukund Choudhary is a third generation entrepreneur. He requests his grandfather's name be mentioned in this piece and even spells the name for us. "My grandfather Chiranjilal Choudhary has been my driving force. He retired 8-10 years ago," he adds.

His father Ajay Kumar Choudhary is now the chairman of the group.

The Choudharys have been in the textile business for several decades, a good part of which had been in trading. It was in 1993 that the CLC Group started commercial production. But it was in February 2006 that it shot to limelight with the two acquisitions.

A commerce graduate for Kirori Mal College, Choudhary got into business without giving much thought to an Ivy League stint.

Spentex Industries was originally a RPG Group company, which was taken over by the CLC Group in January 2004. While Indo-Rama will be merged with Spentex, Amit Spinning Industries will be run as a subsidiary.

After these acquisitions, Spentex is now talking about becoming a Rs 1,000-crore company in this year itself. "It will not be just inorganic growth for us. We will be expanding the capacity of all the units that we have bought and growth in future will come from the organic route, too," Choudhary says.