Murugappa targets 35,000 cr turnover by 2013-14

Chennai:

The Murugappa Group is planning to deploy over Rs 1,000 crore capital expenditure (Capex) for the current financial year and is targeting Rs 35,000 crore turnover by 2013-14 at a compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent, according to the group chairman A Vellayan.



Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Vellayan along with N Srinivasan, director finance of Murugappa Corporate Board said  the capex for this fiscal will include balance unspent during previous year. The investments will by group companies – Tube Investments of India (Rs 500 crore), Coromandel International (Rs 280 crore), EID Parry (Rs 50 crore), Carborundum Universal (Rs 85 crore) and others (Rs 85 crore).


They aid increased focus in the business sectors like retail insurance, inclusion of new product lines in stainless steel tubes and focus in funding used commercial vehicles and tractors will further open up avenues for growth.



He said the group recorded an all time high turnover of Rs 22,314 crore during 2011-12, a growth of 31 per cent over financial year 2010-11 turnover of 17,051 crore with most of the key businesses reporting their best ever performance.



On the group’s Silk Road refinery project at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh in joint venture with Cargill, Vellayan said the Rs 500 crore project was shut down for want of natural gas for its power plant and now the company has got permission to have coal fired plant at an outlay of around Rs.70 crore and the plant is expected to be operational in 2014-15.



He also said the the group’s capacity expansion plans in Tamil Nadu and Punjab are expected to commence in 2012-13 after land acquisition is completed. The expansion in Coramandel kakinada is proceeding as per schedule and isn slated for commissioning in 2012-13. “This will add one million tonnes to existing three million tonnes,” he added.



He said the acquisition of Sabero Organics, a listed company and a significant player in crop protection business, will provide access to potential market opportunities in Latin America and Sedis will help gain access to US market. ‘The acquisition Coromandel will be among the top five players in the country in the crop protection market,” he added.


He also said the company has a plan for setting up a Greenfield facility Single Super Phospate plan in Punjab in the light of escalating prices of phospatic fertilizers.