Allied Computers plans Rs 300 cr IPO

Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd (ACI), a 100 per cent subsidiary of the UK-based Allied Computer Industries Plc, has decided to come out with a Rs 300 crore, Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the first quarter of the next financial year.

The company plans to use the proceeds of the IPO in expanding the notebook manufacturing facility being setup at Infocity complex, here.

To take the fight right into the competitors' camps, ACI plans to slash the prices of its notebooks by 50 per cent.

"We are going to setup our global manufacturing plant at Gandhinagar by September, 2004 with an initial investment of Rs 10 crore. The plant will have an initial capacity of 25,000 units per month," Hirji Patel, chairman of ACI Plc and ACI (Asia) told Business Standard on Monday.

"As we are setting up marketing networks in Sri Lanka, Dubai, South Africa and east African countries, we will have to enhance our manufacturing capacity by 400 per cent by end of June, 2005. We expect come out with the IPO before that to fund the massive expansion," he added.

Patel was in the city to attend the formal opening of ACI's plant in Infocity. ACI has already asked for an additional 20 acre of open plot within the Infocity for setting the plant.

ACI, which began selling its eight laptop models from September, 2003, clocked a turnover of around Rs 25 crore in last year. Patel expects this to touch the Rs 100-crore mark by end of the current fiscal year.

"With Ethos-V model notebooks, priced at Rs 29,999, which has received overwhelming response during the last 10 months, we are now introducing Intel Pentium-M powered, high-end notebook Emerald C. This Wi-fi model will be priced at Rs 44,990," he said.

"With more models planned for the future, we are confident of selling 100,000 units a year," Patel added.

Though the Indian notebook market has been showing a fast growth (during the last year 70,000 units were sold compared with 48,000 units sold during previous year) all companies including major players like IBM, Toshiba and Compaq have depended on import.