New Vice-Chairman For Century

K.M.Birla Now Vice-Chairman of  B.K.Birla's Century Textiles and Industries

Century Textiles and Industries' Board Of Directors has appointed Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla group, as Century’s Vice-Chairman. K.M.Birla, is the grandson of B.K.Birla, who is the Chairman of Century Textiles and Industries. Prior to this appointment, K.M.Birla was a director on Century’s board.

Century Textiles and Industries has a big cement business, apart from textiles and real estate in Mumbai. According to cement industry sources, Century  could be merged with UltraTech Cement, owned by the Aditya Birla group. UltraTech is India's largest cement company, with a capacity of 67.7 MPTA. 

Century Textiles has a cement capacity of 12.8 MPTA, while Kesoram Industries has a cement capacity of 7.25 MPTA. Both these cement companies form part of the B.K.Birla empire.

In recent years, cement industry insiders say that the Aditya Birla group companies had increased their stakes in Century Textiles and Industries, from 45 % to 50 %.

Anjani Portland Cement

Anjani Portland Cement Posts Excellent Q2 Results

Hyderabad based Anjani Portland Cement has posted its 2015 Q2 results.

Net Profit stood at Rs.9.60 crore, against Rs.2.88 crore for the corresponding quarter last year, an increase of 233 %.
Net Sales stood at Rs.79.13 crore, against Rs.67.07 crore for the corresponding quarter last year, an increase of 26 %.
Finance Cost stood at Rs.4.08 crore, against Rs.7.78 crore for the corresponding quarter last year, an decrease of 48 %.

The cement and cement products maker posted such excellent results on the back of strong realization and lower finance cost.

Anjani Portland Cement started with an initial production capacity of 0.3 million tonnes per annum in 1999. Its current cement production capacity is 1.2 million tonnes per annum. Its second plant powered with the latest modern technology had started operations in 2010.

Jaypee Group To Divest Cement Business

Jaypee Group In Talks With JSW Cement With New Offer

Around eight months ago, the Jaypee Group had initiated talks with JSW Cement, a private company of the diversified Sajjan Jindal lead JSW Group to sell its entire approx. 22 MPTA cement portfolio. At that time, sources say the offer was to sell a controlling 51 per cent stake in a joint venture that would keep majority control of its cement units with the Jaypee Group. The talks did not come to any tangible conclusion.

Now, informed sources say, Jaypee has gone back to JSW cement with a new proposal that calls for a complete sellout of its cement business. Though, some sources say that Jaypee is likely to exclude its first cement plant located in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, from the proposed sale.

Inspite of divesting around 9 MPTA of cement capacity to other cement companies like UltraTech Cement (4.8 MPTA), Shree Cement (1.5 MPTA) and Dalmia Cement (2.1 MPTA), as well as its current efforts to divest an additional 4.9 MPTA in Madhya Pradesh to UltraTech, the Delhi-based Jaypee Group group is still among the top five cement players in the country.

The Jaypee Group's has cement units in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. The group's flagship company,Jaiprakash Associates (JPA), has approximately 14.2 MPTA, under its wing. The rest, including the 5 MPTA Balaji Cement, are under subsidiaries, joint ventures or group entities.

More on Cement Business Aquisition here...

Dalmia All Set To Increase Market Share

Dalmia Cement Has Commenced Plans To Increase Its Market Share in South India

The 75 year-old cement major, Dalmia Cement Bharat Limited (DCBL) expects to improve its market share in south India by entering the Karnataka market.

Dalmia Cement recently commenced operations at its greenfield cement plant in Belgaum district, Karnataka, and launched its superior grade cement in the Karnataka market. The cement plant, built at the cost of ₹1,300-crore, will cater to customers in the Karnataka region, which accounts for 5 per cent of the total Indian cement market. The plant in Karnataka is the company’s 11th manufacturing facility in the country and is the third-largest cement group in India.

Dalmia Cement has a 24 MPTA cement manufacturing capacity and with the third largest manufacturing capacity in the country.

Read more on the South India Cement Market Share here...

Reliance Cement

Reliance Infrastructure To Exit Cement Business By Selling Off Reliance Cement

Anil Ambani, head of the Anil Ambani led Reliance Group has gone on record stating that  the company would look at divesting stake in non-core businesses including cement to bring down debt.

Started in 2007, Reliance Cement is a fully-owned subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure, part of the Anil Ambani led Reliance Group. The interest in the cement business was linked to the growth of its power business with the fly ash waste generated from the Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project being used as a basic raw material.

Reliance Cement had planned on earlier to emerge as the one of the biggest cement players in the country with the largest single location cement facility. It had initially planned to set up four cement plants of 5 MPTA cement capacity each at a massive investment outlay. All the units were to come up in Madhya Pradesh so that they could  leverage on the strengths of the Reliance Group's Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project.

The original blueprint included plans to scale up operations to 15 MTPA over the 3-5 years with integrated cement units in MP and Maharashtra.

Reliance Cement has a total installed capacity of 5.8 MPTA. Out of this 2.8 MTPA is at the mother unit based in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh that was commissioned in 2014. The rest of the cement units are in Kundaganj, Uttar Pradesh and Butiburi, Maharastra.

Reliance Cements is presently marketed in UP, MP, Jharkhand, West Bengal and in parts of Maharashtra.

Posted by Stewart D'Rozario Cement Marketing Consultant from news reports.

UTCL Cement Capacity Increase

UltraTech Cement Increases Cement Capacity

UltraTech Cement Ltd has commissioned a cement grinding unit with a capacity of 1.6 million tonnes at Dankuni in West Bengal. With this capacity addition, the company’s total cement capacity to 65 million tonnes per annum (MPTA).

In the last six months, the company has commissioned three new cement capacity additions, this includes a bulk cement terminal in Maharashtra, another 1.6 MPTA cement grinding unit in Haryana and a cement clinker capacity addition of 2 MPTA in Rajasthan.

With the commissioning of this new cement grinding unit, UltraTech Cement's total cement capacity in East India stands at 9.8 MPTA, when operated at full capacity utilization.

UltraTech Cement, is in the process of acquiring Jaiprakash Associates’ two cement assets in MP which will increase its total cement capacity to 71 MPTA.