Binani Cement plans LSE listing

Binani Cement, part of the Rs 2500 crore Braj Binani group is looking at getting listed on the London Stock Exchange to attract international investors.

The company at present has production facilities in China and is scouting for coal properties in Indonesia.

It is in the last leg of finalising long term mining lease contract for a coal block in Indonesia, said Vinod Juneja, managing director of the Braj Binani Group on the sidelines of the launch of the company's ordinary portland cement (OPC) variety in Kolkata on Thursday.

“We will finalise the deal very soon. The coal property has approximately 30 year reserves and can provide roughly with six million ton per annum (mtpa) of coal, but valuation has not yet been fixed," he said.

“We want to make Binani Cement a global company and increase our global footprint, and so we are looking at getting listed on the London Stock Exchange, but the timing will depend on the market condition, he added.

The company is in talks with a couple of merchant bankers.

Binani Cement at present has a 6.25mtpa plant at Sirohi in Rajasthan.

It signed a memorandum of understanding last year with Gujarat government to set up a 2.5mtpa greenfield cement plant in Gujarat at a cost of Rs 825 crore.

“We plan to increase production capacity inside India to roughly 10mtpa and increase combined capacity of plants in China and Dubai to 4mtpa from 2.5mtpa now, and add another 1mtpa in Mauritius, for total capacity of 15mtpa by 2010-11," he said.

“We will start our new plant in Mauritius this year with capacity of 1mtpa” he added.

The company plans to make Mauritius the hub for the supply of cement to the neighbouring region, particularly to countries of the Southern African Development Community and eastern and southern Africa markets.

The cement major hopes to touch an enterprise value of $2billion by 2011 based on an industry valuation with all its expansion projects coming on stream. The company on Thursday announced its foray into West Bengal. It would not construct any manufacturing hub in the eastern region of the country. Cement would be transported to the state from its Rajasthan plant by rail. When asked how cost effective this would be, Juneja said, “We will be able to compete with companies having their plants in the eastern region as we are entitled to concession in rail freight rates for transporting our cement in return journey of coal wagons.”