India Cements To Bid Again For Cci Plant

We will bid again, India Cements' general manager of operations, T V Swaminathan, said. India Cements had bid for CCI's plant at Yerraguntla last year.

Cement Corporation invited global bids for sale or joint venture of the Yerraguntla plant during the weekend. It said SBI Capital Markets had been appointed to obtain, evaluate and recommend proposals.

CCI said it planned to sell 26 per cent, 50 per cent or 74 per cent of ownership.

The Yerraguntla plant has an installed capacity of 0.4 million tonnes of cement a year, with a scope to expand up to one million tonnes.

The plant and expansion are based on dry-process technology. The Yerraguntla unit produced 235,000 tonnes of cement in 1995-96, CCI said.

 

India Cements had obtained government approval for a $50-million global depository receipts (GDR) issue to part-finance the acquisition of the Yerraguntla plant.

Jardine Fleming Broking (India) was appointed lead manager to the issue, which was not pursued.

Swaminathan said CCI might have decided to invite fresh bids because there were only two contenders at last year's bidding.

Another reason could be that after last year's bid, the Yerraguntla unit was referred to the Bureau of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR).

The Yerraguntla unit is very close to India Cements' own plant at Chilamkur in Andhra Pradesh. A part of the Sankar group, India Cements is the largest cement manufacturer in south India with installed capacity of 2.6 million tonnes.