Kolkata, Aug 2 (IANS) Aiming to double its installed capacity in the next two fiscals, Berger Paints plans to pump in Rs.100 crore in 2011-12 to ramp up production, a top company official said here Tuesday.
‘We are looking at doubling production in the next two years. We are looking at raising our market share,’ company managing director Subir Bose told reporters on the sidelines of its 87th annual general meeting here.
The company has increased the target capacity of the greenfield project it is setting up at Andhra Pradesh’s Hindpur to 320,000 kilo litre per tonne per annum for water based paints and to 100,000 kilo litre per tonne for emulsions.
The first phase of the project is slated to be completed by 2014.
The company was also aiming to more than triple the capacity of its water based paint unit in Goa to 88,000 kilo litre per tonne per annum from 28,800 kilo litre per tonne per annum.
The company increased its product prices thrice in the first quarter of the current fiscal due to rising raw material costs, but would not effect any more rate hikes in the immediate future, Bose said.
In the first quarter of 2011-12, the company’s standalone net profit rose by 11 percent to Rs.41 crore from Rs.37 crore in the year-ago period.
The standalone net sales went up by 31 percent to touch Rs.641 crore as compared to Rs.491 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Company chairman Kuldip Singh Dhingra told reporters on the sidelines of the AGM that the sluggish growth in the construction sector would not greatly impact the organisation as 80 percent of its business came from repainting.
‘Even if there is a slowdown in the near projects, our business will not be impacted that much’.
