Emami to make Rs.1.25 billion capital expenditure

Kolkata, Aug 8 (IANS) Personal and healthcare products major Emami Ltd. would invest up to Rs.1.25 billion in projects in the country and abroad in the current financial year, a top executive of the company said Wednesday.

The firm is planning to start a green field plant (new project) in Assam, to be the third one in the state, pumping in around Rs.40 crore to Rs.50 crore.

"Capital expenditure would be in the range of Rs.100 crore to Rs.125 crore in 2012-13 in green field and some of the brown field (existing) projects," Emami Group chief executive officer (finance, strategy and business development) N.H. Bhansali told reporters on the sidelines of the Annual General Meeting of the company.

The Kolkata-based company would spend Rs.12 crore to Rs.15 crore for the opening of its manufacturing plant in Egypt, which it had acquired last fiscal. The amount would be invested for the first phase of the project.

The company, which posted a consolidated turnover of Rs.14.53 billion (Rs.1,453 crore) in the last fiscal, would also invest about Rs.7 crore to Rs.10 crore in its Bangladesh plant, a subsidiary.

The manufacturing plants in Bangladesh and Egypt, which will produce personal and healthcare products, will be opened in the current financial year.

Bhansali said the company was in the process of identifying land for its third manufacturing plant in Assam.

The FMCG major, which owns power brands like Zandu Balm, Menthoplus Balm and Fair and Handsome, expects that the third unit in Assam would be started by the end of 2012-13.

The company currently has seven manufacturing units of its own in the country.

Meanwhile, Emami Ltd. has posted a 12.3 percent rise in net profit to Rs.47 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2012. Net sales during the first quarter grew 14.1 percent to Rs. 339 crore.