New Vernon Bharat Picks Up 15% In Eastern Condiments For $10 Million
This investment had happened in January since I had reported this then. In January this year, the government had cleared an FDI proposal from New Vernon Bharat to invest about $10 million in Eastern Condiments, a Kerala-based Masala maker. Here is the official announcement on the deal from Kochi.
New Vernon is picking up about 15 per cent stake in Eastern for Rs 45 crore. That values the company at Rs 300 crore. Not bad at all for a masala maker which grew from a small scale industrial unit in Kerala’s hill district of Idukki to a large enterprise with a turnover of Rs 122 crore in 2005-06. It has net profits of Rs 18 crore. This year (2006-07), it’s projected a net profit of Rs 21 crore on a total sales turnover of Rs 163 crore.
The managing director of Eastern Condiments is Navas Meeran, who said that the funds would go in for expansion along the Soth-West corridor (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra and Maharashtra). It plans to set up two factories - one in Kerala and the other one in Gudur in Andhra Pradesh with 100-tonne production capacity a day. The company plans to go in for an IPO in the next 36 months.
It has signed a deal with the Trinetra retail chain and plans with Reliance Retail Limited soon. [Via Business Standard]
Our earlier story
New Vernon Bharat Invests Rs 44 Crore In Masala Maker Eastern Condiments
