The Hindu Business Line - December 10, 2010
“Over the last few years we contracted our seeds part of the business. But with this acquisition we expect an addition cumulative revenue of Rs 1,000 crore by 2015,” said Mr V. Shankar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Rallis India.
The company has picked up a stake of 53.5 per cent in Metahelix for Rs 99.5 crore and in the next five years Rallis plans to pick up 100 per cent stake progressively.
“Farmer adoption of good hybrid seeds is rapidly growing and with this newly acquired strength, Rallis will be in a firm position to provide a portfolio of seeds for the farmers,” he added.
Rallis will continue to invest in the company and subscribe to an additional equity of Rs 25 crore to increase its stake in Metahelix to 59.02 per cent soon.
“We will be investing further. In the first quarter of the next fiscal we will make a further investment. The investment will focus on R&D and if there is need we would invest in processing facilities,” said Mr Shankar.
The Indian seeds market is currently the sixth largest in the world at Rs 6,500 crore. “It is large market and growing at 12-13 per cent per annum. We expect this to grow faster in the future,” added Mr Shankar.
Metahelix has a product portfolio in rice, maize, millets and vegetable seeds along with good germplasm with many exciting products in the pipeline. It has nationwide sales presence through Dhaanya Seeds, sold through around 1,000 distributors. Metahelix is the first Indian company to have a proprietary Bt trait, cry1C approved in cotton.
He added that Rallis has no plans to change the employees or promoters of Metahelix. Sales would continue under the Dhaanya Seeds brand of Metahelix.
No comments:
Post a Comment