Godrej looking for acquisitions in Indonesia

FMCG major Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) is scouting for acquisitions in Indonesia and has shared 'a wish list of assets' with various investment bankers as part of its inorganic growth strategy in the South East Asian nation.
"There is already a plan for various assets, which we would love to have within our portfolio if available. Unfortunately, we do not find too many sellers in Indonesia yet," GCPL Head Indonesia and Middle East Cluster Naveen Gupta told analysts in a concall.
He was responding to a query on whether GCPL, which had acquired Indonesian household product major PT Megasari Makmur Group in 2010, is looking for fresh acquisitions.

Gupta further said: "There are wish list of assets shared with various investment bankers, some of them are working on some of the assets that we would love to have with us as part of our inorganic growth strategy. So within that same framework we will continue to expand into Indonesia as well."
However, he didn't share details of the company's possible targets or the sum that GCPL has earmarked for the purpose.
Commenting on the company's overall direct distribution network expansion in Indonesia, Gupta said GCPL is looking at doubling it in the next 3-5 years from 1,10,000 at present.

"In current year we are driving distribution expansion much faster which will happen through two parts - one, possibly creating new stock points of our own where the quality of distribution goes up," he said, besides it would also add some smaller stockists from distributor point.

"Our assumption (is that) the 1,10,000 could be nearly doubled in the next three to five years cycle," he added.
GCPL's net sales in the financial year 2015-16 stood at, Rs 8,957.15 crore and the Indonesian business contributed to 16 per cent of total sales.
The government would get "lot of revenues" from the

demonetisation move, Godrej said, adding that it would be a good opportunity to cut direct taxes in the coming budget so that "much more money will be declared by the people and also it will help the growth of the economy".
"Main thing would be in ease of doing business. That means, less and less government permissions. You declare a policy and let people go ahead and do their business. If they break the policy, take action but don't go for case-by-case government permissions", he said.
"Once GST comes, I think the Indian economy will do very well and growth will be very good," he added.