The Hindu Business Line : Hindustan Newsprint may consider IPO for expansion

This will be one of the options to raise funds to meet a substantial portion of the cost for doubling the company's newsprint manufacturing capacity in Kerala from 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 tonnes per annum with flexibility for producing finer grade of writing and printing paper.

Disclosing this to newspersons here on Wednesday, the Chairman and Managing Director of HPC and Chairman of HNL, Mr Raji Philip, said HNL may make an IPO to garner about Rs 300 crore to meet a portion of the Rs 640-crore expansion programme.

Globally renowned consultant Jaako Poyry of Finland has been engaged to prepare the detailed project report for the expansion plan.

HPC has outlined a roadmap to strengthen and reinforce the competitiveness of its two mills in Assam in keeping with the strategic and structural changes in the domestic paper industry.

For the mills in Assam (at Naogaon and Cachar), a two-phase programme has been chalked out entailing a capital investment of about Rs 520 crore towards modernisation and technological upgradation.

Mr Philip said HPC was actively pursuing revival of another subsidiary, Nagaland Pulp and Paper Company (NPPC), which has a mill at Tuli with a production capacity of 100 tonnes per day (tpd) of writing and printing paper.

HPC posted a profit before tax of (PBT) about Rs 58 crore during the fiscal ended March 2005 on a sales turnover of about Rs 854 crore. Its three operating mills including HNL recorded a production of 3,09,514 tonnes of paper and newsprint against 3,22,570 tonnes in the previous fiscal.

Operations at Naogaon and Cachar suffered a setback during the fiscal under review owing to unprecedented floods in Assam. In the process, the company lost production of about 10,000 tonnes, valuing about Rs 15 crore, said Mr Philip.

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