Jumbo World Set To Pick Mather Pie In Swc

Jumbo World Holdings, the Dubai-based investment vehicle of Manu Chhabria, is in the process of buying out the shares held by group company Mather & Platt in flagship Shaw Wallace & Company (SWC).

Mather & Platt holds 233,966 shares in the liquor company which amounts to a 4.86 per cent stake. Chhabria's shareholding in SWC is 39 per cent, while he controls over 50 per cent of the company along with friends and associates.

This proposal comes in the wake of a similar move undertaken by Chhabria recently. A couple of weeks back, Jumbo had applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to buy out Mather & Platt's 30.65 per cent stake in another group company, Falcon Tyres.

According to sources, this is part of an initiative undertaken by Chhabria to consolidate his hold over his Indian companies. He has drawn up plans to get the group firms delisted from Indian bourses and convert them into closely held companies.

"We want to make it a closely held group," Chhabria told Business Standard during a recent visit to Delhi.

The companies controlled by Chhabria in India include SWC, Dunlop India, Falcon Tyres, Mather & Platt and Hindustan Dorr-Oliver.

The combined turnover of these companies is in excess of Rs 5,000 crore.

In Dunlop, which is on the operating table of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction, Chhabria has a 39 per cent stake. The promoter group's shareholding in Falcon Tyres is 78.05 per cent, while the holding in Mather & Platt is 51 per cent. The group's holding in Hindustan Dorr-Oliver is at 73.01 per cent.

Last year Chhabria had pumped in Rs 32 crore into Dunlop through a Rs 26 crore loan and a line of credit worth Rs 6 crore. This was supposed to be converted into equity.

"If I bring in another Rs 32 crore, my stake will be good enough to get the company delisted," Chhabria had said.

SWC, at the moment, is being split into three companies: one each to handle the beer and liquor businesses, and a third company for residual businesses.