Gateway Distriparks Ltd has hiked its stake in its Snowman Logistics Ltd (SLL), a cold chain services company, to 54.19 per cent, as per a stock market disclosure. The firm has bought an additional 7.4 million shares or about 6 per cent stake in Snowman from Japanese firm Nichirei Logistics Corporation (Nichirei) for about Rs 25.9 crore ($4.3 million).
Post-acquisition, SLL will become a subsidiary of Gateway Distriparks and Nichirei will cease to be a shareholder of SLL.
Other major shareholders of the logistics firm include Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Logistics Corporation (together holding over 14 per cent), IFC (12.46 per cent) and Norwest Venture Partners (13.86 per cent).
Last August, Gateway Distriparks had entered into a definitive agreement with the Japanese firm to acquire its stake. At the same time, SLL had filed the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for its initial public offering (IPO).
Gateway scrip was trading at Rs 149.50, up 1.78 per cent at 2:43PM on the BSE in a flat Mumbai market on Wednesday.
Bangalore-headquartered SLL provides temperature-controlled storage services to a number of industries, catering to the likes of Hindustan Unilever, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Mother Dairy and ITC.
It has 21 temperature controlled warehouses spread over 13 locations, with capacity of 46,000 pallets and 3,000 ambient pallets. It operates 238 reefer vehicles consisting of 175 leased and 63 owned ones. It has warehouses in all major cities, including Mumbai, Chennai and Pune, and plans to expand to other cities like Chandigarh and Surat.
Incorporated in 1994, Gateway Distriparks started with the business of general and bonded warehousing, handling and clearing of seaborne exim cargo. Today, it has ventured into other activities including logistics.
The firm has three verticals named Container Freight Stations (CFS), Inland Container Depots (ICD) with rail movement of containers to major maritime ports, and Cold Chain Storage and Logistics. Gateway Distriparks operates two Container Freight Stations at Navi Mumbai, one at Chennai and one at Visakhapatnam.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
