Dalmia eyes cement capacity growth, India
Dalmia has been focusing on increasing capacity as well as market share and Puneet Dalmia, managing director, hopes to make the company one of the top three cement producers in India. Expanding its footprint to east India with Orissa Cement, the company’s steady 33% growth rate for five years, the company inked INR500 crore deal with US private equity major Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) in 2010. Below is a transcript of Puneet Dalmia’s interview with CNBC-TV18.
Q: Could you take us through the manufacturing capacity of the plant that you have? What are the plans to take it forward?
A: Our total capacity across the group in cement is about 14Mt. We would like to be in the range of 30-40Mt player. At least, we want to be somewhere between 7-10% of the market.
Q: You have stayed away from acquisitions on the cement side. Are you open to inorganic strategies as far as the cement business is concerned?
A: Absolutely. With the KKR deal, our mindset has changed. Apart from greenfield, we will look at inorganic opportunities as well.
Q: What are your revenue targets for FY12? How close are you to the aspiration of having a 10% domestic market share?
A: In the markets that we operate, we have 15% market share. There are some new markets that we have entered where we have 4% and 5% market share. We are scaling that up and are doing reasonably well.
Q: What are the future plans as far as Dalmia Cement is concerned? Are you also awaiting an IPO?
A: Only after we build a significant momentum and scale, we will be thinking about it. We are not looking at going public right now. We are just focused in the short term in consolidating our position and executing well. In the long term, we are looking at significantly scaling up our business.
Published under Cement News
