JSW Group to invest Rs 1,000 cr in paints units, take on Asian Paints

Group aims to become one-stop solution, offering cement, steel and paints to the consumer

The Sajjan Jindal family is investing Rs 1,000 crore to build two factories to enter the Asian Paints-dominated paints segment, and is targeting an April 2018 launch, a senior official has said.

"We are planning to launch in April of next year. We have one factory coming up in Vijaynagar in Karnataka and one industrial line coming up in Vasind in Maharashtra," his son Parth Jindal, who is looking after the business, said.

He said JSW Paints is a fully family-owned entity and the two plants are coming up at an investment of Rs 1,000 crore, which will be funded through both debt and equity.

Asian Paints is gaining market share every year in the paints segment and the family, which already runs JSW Steel and JSW Cement, looks at this as a lucrative business because of the complementarity, he said.

"The paint industry is growing at 15 per cent every year. Asian Paints is gaining market share every year. It's an industry we are very excited about, We have the cement and steel distribution already in place. We have the opportunity to become the one-stop solution where we can offer cement, steel and paint to consumer," he told reporters recently.

It will be both a business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C), he said, adding it will be doing a decorative unit in Vijaynagar, while the Vasind unit will focus on industrial segment.

Jindal said the company has started work on both the factories and expects them to be ready by early 2018, and it will be hitting the market in April or May, after testing the products.

At present, Asian Paints' capacity is 1 million kilolitres per annum while the total market is 2.5 million KLPA, Jindal said, adding JSW Paints is looking to hit 1 million KLPA by 2025.

Initially the focus will be on the southern and the western markets and the company is also looking at installing capacity in West Bengal in the next few years, he said.

"We are very excited by the potential of the business and we understand the retail business a little bit because of cement. I think there is huge opportunity for us, a new entrant to do well," he said.