Addressing a press conference after the company's annual general meeting, Singhania said the appointment of the merchant banker was aimed to chalk out future growth plan.
However, Singhania declined to comment neither on a possible trifurcation of operations into three separate entities nor on merger of Vikrant Tyres, a wholly owned subsidiary, into it. "All these news are speculative. We are yet to made up our minds on the issues," he added.
J K Industries, he said, has tied up funds to expand capacities of tyre and sugar businesses for Rs 95 crore by the current financial year. Of this, Rs 70 crore is meant for tyres expansion, while the rest will be spent in the sugar division.
Vikrant Tyres would complete the Rs 275-crore expansion plan by this fiscal out of which Rs 170 crore has already been invested.
The expansion plan would help the company to enhance the radial tyres capacity to 13 lakh and the tyres for light vehicle cars (LCVs) to 10.5 lakh. The existing capacity of both the categories of tyres stand at nine lakh per annum.
He said the company was looking for "strategic alliance" with a foreign major for J K Drug & Pharmaceuticals, one of its subsidiaries, which fared poor last year.
According to him, J K Industries has decided to introduce Dial A Tyre, a brand promotion exercise, in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore shortly.
In addition, the company will spend nearly Rs 30 crore this year to grab a greater pie of the Rs 9,000-crore Indian radial tyre market for promotional activities and media campaign.
J K Industries, the only Indian tyre maker having products for the entire range encompassing truck, bus, LCV, passenger cars and jeeps, enjoys 28 per cent of the radial tyre market.
Earlier, J K Industries chairman Hari Shankar Singhania told the shareholders that the "growth trend is expected to strengthen with the government's initiative for developing a network of multi-lane highways".
In the first quarter ended June 2000, the company recorded a 10 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 10.5 crore over the preceding corresponding year, despite a five per cent reduction in sales at Rs 330 crore.
