Exide Rejigs Capital Base, Includes Pref Shares

Exide Industries (EIL) has decided to recast its capital base.

The company has proposed to divide its Rs 75 crore authorised share capital into equity shares worth Rs 50 crore and preference shares worth Rs 25 crore.

The proposal, which will be put up as an ordinary resolution for shareholder approval during the company's annual general meeting on September 3, will have five crore equity shares of Rs 10 each and 2.5 crore preference shares of Rs 10 each. The present authorised capital of Exide is Rs 75 crore, which is divided into 7.5 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each. In another move, EIL's wholly-owned subsidiary, Exide Products, has purchased the entire 10,00,700 shares of Macneill International (MIL) at a cost of around Rs 1 crore.

 

MIL, which was involved in the selling and distribution of miners' cap lamps, batteries and related equipment, has now become a wholly-owned Exide Products arm. Exide Products has, during the year, consolidated its distribution network by opening up set-ups at Jaipur, Cuttack, Siliguri and Varanasi. The company's sales at Rs 148.34 crore was higher by over 11 per cent as against last year. Exide, which had mooted the idea of merging EPL with EIL, has deferred the decision for the time being. EIL, which clocked sales of Rs 571 crore for the year ended March 31, 1998, saw volumes rise by 9 per cent mainly in the replacement market.

It retained its top position in the original equipment (OE) segment of the automobile sector, which was further augmented by the buy-out of Standard Batteries' assets. This has helped the company garner a market share of 89 per cent in the original equipment sector. The motorcycle battery segment recorded 22 per cent growth in volumes. The company is currently focusing on penetrating the heavy and light commercial vehicles markets, which has so farbeen dominated by rebuilders.