Displaying items by tag: India

India: Harish Badami has taken over as CEO and managing director of ACC effective from 13 August 2014. The former CEO and managing director, Kuldip Kaura, left his position on the same date. The board of ACC, in which Holcim has a majority stake, had approved Badami's appointment in June 2014.

Immediately before joining ACC on 1 August 2014, Badami had served as managing director of Celanese India. He has held similar positions of president and managing director of Dow Chemical India, as well as managing director of Rohm and Haas India, before its acquisition in 2009 by Dow Chemical.

India: Orient Cement has appointed Sushil Gupta as chief financial officer following a meeting of its board of directors. Other appointments included Rahul Deshmukh as chief operating officer and S K Pandey as plant head of Devapur.

India: Delhi Government's Revenue Department has fined Holcim India US$11m for evasion of stamp duty. It also directed the company to pay stamp duty of US$36m and a penalty of US$11m within 30 days for violation of stamp duty. Collector of Stamps (HQ) Lalit Mohan told local media that Holcim India had violated the payment of stamp duty with the merger of Ambuja Cement.

"The stamp duty on the merger order is payable at the rate of 3% on the total amount of US$1.2bn which comes out to be US$36m... The company is required to adjudicate or pay stamp duty within a period of one month which it failed to do," said Lalit Mohan in the order.

In its submission to the Revenue Department, Holcim India stated that there was no transfer of movable and immovable assets from transferor company (Ambuja Cement) with transferee company (Holcim) except shares held by transferor company in other companies have been transferred to transferee company. Subsequently the company did not see itself as liable for stamp duty.

India: Ultratech Cement has announced that it has earmarked US$1.14bn of capital expenditure (capex) towards expansion projects over the next three years.

"Our capex for the 2015 fiscal year is expected to be US$618m, for the 2016 fiscal year we will spend US$497m and for the 2017 fiscal year we will spend US$33.3m," said UltraTech Cement's Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla at the company's recent Annual General Meeting. The producer currently claims a total cement capacity of 62Mt/yr. "By early 2016, we expect this to scale up to 70Mt/yr when all ongoing projects will be fully commissioned. A judicious mix of internal accruals and borrowings have been used for funding the projects," Birla said.

Speaking about recent acquisitions, Birla said, "The acquisition of the 4.8Mt/yr Gujarat Cement Units from Jaypee Cement Corporation at a cost of US$620m represents a milestone in UltraTech's growth strategy, strengthening its foothold in the growing western market and bolstering its coastal footprint."

India: The director of JK Cement, Shri Jagendra Swarup, passed away on 30 July 2014. His replacement is expected to be announced shortly.

India: JK Cement has appointed Sushila Devi Singhania as an additional director with effect from 26 July 2014.

India: Chettinad Cement Corporation has raised its stake in Anjani Portland Cement to 66.08% by acquiring a 17.08% stake through an open offer. The offer was triggered by Chettinad Cement entering into a share purchase agreement in March 2014 to acquire up to 61.74% holding from the promoters of Anjani Portland for US$11.7m.

According to Chettinad Cement, the agreement has built-in flexibility to ensure that its holding is limited to 75%, the maximum allowed for a firm to remain listed. As the open offer attracted a good response, Chettinad Cement had limited its share purchase from the promoters to 49%. Chettinad Cement has to pay US$4.92m to buy shares from the promoters and an additional US$3.23m to fund the open offer. The acquisition will help Chettinad Cement, which has a presence predominantly in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, to enter Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

India: Prism Cement has reported a net profit of US$2.2m for the second quarter of 2014, which it attributes to higher sales and margins. The performance represents a turn-around from the US$7.96m net loss that Prism suffered in the same quarter of 2013. Total income rose to US$230.9m, mainly due to higher revenue from cement and clinker, of which it sold 1.54Mt during the quarter.

India: Continued slackness in domestic cement demand led to a 47% fall in Ramco Cements' net profit to US$6.04m during the second quarter of 2014, which ended on 30 June 2014, down from US$11.5m during the same quarter of 2013. Revenues fell by 2.8% to US$160m, down from US$165m in 2013.

On a consolidated basis, Ramco Cements earned a net profit of US$6.10m during the second quarter of 2014, which includes results of its subsidiary company, Ramco Windfarms, as well as its associate company, Ramco Systems.

Ramco Cements expects performance to improve in the coming months. It is establishing a cement grinding plant at Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, with a 1Mt/yr grinding capacity, at a cost of US$59.8m. The project will be completed over the next few months and will help the company to grow in the Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh State markets. Ramco Cements is also working on increasing capacity at its thermal power plants at Alathiyur Village and Ariyalur Town in Tamil Nadu State.

India: JK Lakshmi Cement has reported a 31% turnover increase to US$111m in the second quarter of 2014, which ended on 30 June 2014, compared to US$85.0m in the corresponding quarter of 2013. The increase was attributed to 14% growth in production and an 18% increase in sales volumes.

JK Lakshmi Cement's operating profit during the quarter stood at US$19.3m. This represents a 58% increase compared to the same period of 2013, when operating profit was US$12.2m. After providing for interest and depreciation, the company's pre-tax profit rose to US$11.0m, compared to US$2.96m in the same period of 2013. After accounting for exceptional items and tax, JK Lakshmi Cement posted a net profit of US$6.73m for the second quarter of 2014, up from US$2.61m in the corresponding quarter of 2013.

JK Lakshmi Cement has reduced its fuel consumption to 715,000Cal/Kg of clinker in the second quarter of 2014, compared to 731,000Cal/Kg of clinker in the corresponding quarter of 2013. It has also reported satisfactory progress in its 2.7Mt/yr capacity greenfield cement plant in Durg, Chhattisgarh, which is expected to be commissioned in the third quarter of 2014.