Philips Carbon to invest Rs 470 cr in 3 projects, expand capacity

Kolkata, May 3: Philips Carbon Black Ltd, an RPG company, will invest Rs 470 crore to expand its carbon manufacturing capacity from 2,70,000 MT to 3,95,000 MT with its green field project in Mundra, Gujarat and two other projects in Durgapur and Kochi.

Speaking to mediapersons here today, Philips Carbon chairman Sanjiv Goenka said,''With these new projects, our company will be the sixth largest in the world.'' At present Philips Carbon ranks ninth in the world.

''We will invest Rs 215 crore in the Mundra carbon plant. The capacity of the plant will be increased from 40,000 million tonnes to 75,000 million tonnes which will be raised to 90,000 million tonnes. The project would have a 14MW power plant,'' he said adding the Mundra and the Kochi plants would be operational by the third quarter of 2008-09.

The Durgapur unit would be operational in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal. Around Rs 120 crore has already been invested in this plant, with the capacity of 1,40,000 MT, and captive power plant of 30 MW while the Kochi factory will have a capacity of 35,000 MT.

During 2006-07, PCBL's turnover crossed Rs 1000 crore mark with the gross revenue of rs 1127.39 crore compared to Rs 827.28 crore in the corresponding period previous year.

In this fiscal the PCBL's sales grew by 36 per cent and earnings per share touched Rs 11.75.

Philips Carbon will maintain a debt-equity ratio of 1.5:1 for these projects. The company would invest Rs 140 crore as equity, of which Rs 45 crore as preferrential share and Rs 95 crore from internal accruals, while Rs 201 crore would be debt. ''The peak ratio will not be more than 2.2:1,'' he added.

However, the company might go to capital markets to raise money, either through public issue or private placements, he said adding no deadline had been fixed for the public issue.

UNI