Kansai Nerolac to invest Rs 400 cr on capacity expansion

Kansai Nerolac Paints (KNPL) plans to invest Rs 400 crore over the next two years to augment the production capacity of its Hosur plant by 20 per cent, a top company official said today.

The current capacity of the plant is around 15,000 tonnes.

"As part of the second phase of the project, we want to increase its capacity by 20 per cent in the next two years. For this, we plan to spend Rs 400 crore," Kansai Nerolac Paints Chairman J J Irani said at the annual general meeting of the company today.

A portion of the funds will be utilised for other projects as well, he said.

KNPL posted a 70 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 1,706.38 crore in FY10 against Rs 1,374.51 crore in the same period last year.

Irani said the company's market share in industrial paints and decorative paints stood at 42 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.

"We are doing well in the industrial paints sector. We are also picking up in the decorative segment, which (we) had started just few years back," Kansai Nerolac Paints Managing Director H M Bharuka said.

Recently, due to an increase in excise duty, coupled with a rise in raw material prices, paint manufacturers across the country had increased prices.

"We have increased our prices by 4 per cent in May and might increase it by 3 per cent by July," Bharuka said.

Asked whether the eurozone crisis could have an impact on their business, Irani said, "Euro crisis will not have much an impact as fluctuations in dollar could, as raw materials are purchased in US currency."