UAE-based RAK Ceramics to invest Rs 75 crore in India

UAE-based vitrified tile maker RAK Ceramics plans to invest Rs 75 crore in a year to boost its production capacity in India, a top executive of the company said here today.
While Rs 50 crore would be invested to acquire a majority stake in an already existing plant in Morbi in Gujarat, the remaining investment wwould be made to increase the capacity of the company's existing plant at Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh.
The company has already invested a sum of Rs 30 crore in its Samalkot plant early this year, to manufacture 2,000 tiles a day, from its earlier existing production capacity of 1,000 pieces a day.

"We are in joint venture talks with an existing tile manufacturing plant in Morbi in which we will invest Rs 50 crore during 2015 by picking up a 51 per cent stake in it.
"The joint venture partnership is likely to help us increase our tiles manufacturing capacity to 3,500 tiles per day from the currently existing capaticy of 2,000 tiles in an year's time," RAK Ceramics Chief Executive Officer Santosh Nema told PTI.
Currently, the company manufactures 75 lakh square metres of tiles per day. However, the joint venture would help it increase the production capacity to 1.75 crore square metre tiles a day, he said.

Talking about the retail network expansion plan of his company in the country, Nema said, "We will unveil upto eight company showrooms across the country in one year from the currently existing mark of 12 showrooms.

"Besides, we plan to increase dealer showrooms to 2,000 from the existing mark of 1,000 showrooms during the next year. Moreover, our presence has been increasing by around 40 per cent every year in retail showrooms."
The company also plans to set up a greenfield plant either in Rajasthan or Gujarat in the future, he said.
"We plan to invest Rs 250 crore in yet another manufacturing plant in either Rajasthan or in Gujarat over the next few years for a manufacturing capacity of 75 lakh square metre tiles per day. However, we have not yet finalised land for to set up the plant so far," he said.

Presently, the company enjoys a 15 per cent market share in the country's tiles industry which is worth Rs 25,000 crore. "We are looking at increasing our marketshare by around 40 per cent every year in future," he said.
Private equity firm Samena Capital had acquired a 30.6 per cent of equity by picking up 25 crore shares in the company in May.