Delhi firm to tap fit-outs business

B L Kashyap & Sons (BLK), a Delhi-based construction firm, which has a presence in the Bangalore construction scene with roles in turnkey projects now plans to enter the furnishing and fit-outs sectors.

Addressing a press conference here recently, Vineet Kashyap, managing director of B L Kashyap & Sons said that a wholly-owned subsidiary BLK Furnishers and Contractors Limited has been set up to bid for projects.

"With the pace of construction in the office space in Bangalore, furnishing and fit-outs will complement our business," he added.

The company has set up similar subsidiaries to take up various facets of the construction sector like real estate development through Soul Space Projects Limited for residential construction activities.

'Security Information Systems (India) Limited' will deal in supply, installation, commissioning, servicing of integrated security information systems, building management systems, fire alarm, fire protection system, access control and other security systems.

The company also plans to target larger projects. For example, construction of residential complexes which are of a built up area of over 4 lakh square feet whose contract value would typically exceed Rs 100 crore.

The company's order book as on September 30, 2005 stood at Rs 579 crore. The company has since then bagged orders of over Rs 300 crore.

B L Kashyap has been bagging projects and those signed up in the last few months include a commercial building for Golf Link Software, Bangalore (Rs 18.94 crore); a Food Court at Manyata Tech Park, Bangalore (Rs 11.60 crore); an office building at Gurgaon (Rs 15 crore); a residential housing project for Uppal Housing at Noida (Rs 120 crore) and a residential housing project for Embassy at Pune (Rs 45.60 crore).

Vineet Kashyap said that the company will enter the capital market with a public issue of 27.5 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each. The price band for the initial public offer (IPO) has been fixed between Rs 625 and Rs 700 per share. The bidoissue opened on Monday (February 20) and will close on Thursday (February 23).

In FY'05, the company posted a turnover of Rs 314 crore and saw a net profit of Rs 12.17 crore. For the six months period-ended September 2005, the company posted a turnover of Rs 207.86 crore and net profit of Rs 13.49 crore.